Hyperion Vault Hunter
by The Blade of Osh-Tekk
Summary: Based on the alternate fic, "Borderlands and the First Male Siren." WARNING: If you are a fan of the original Vault Hunters, you may not enjoy the outcome. But anyway, my OC isn't blown up by Jack on the train and is instead taken to a Hyperion camp to plot against the Vault Hunters. What will happen? OC/Maya
1. Chapter 1 - Objective Details

A/N: Welcome to Hyperion Vault Hunter! Now, to truly understand my character, you'll have to read the alternate story to this "Borderlands and the Male Siren." Everyone who's already read it will know what's going on. I hope you all enjoy this alternate turn of events. It'll start when I'm on the shuttle with the Hyperion officer when we're getting down to Pandora.

* * *

I looked down at the surface of the planet with an analyzing eye. I spotted various creatures roaming around and a even a few bandits on the porches of houses and patrolling around Hyperion train stations.

"I see a bunch of bandits around Hyperion stations. Are you setting me down there so I can kill them?" I asked the Hyperion pilot.

"Nah. These bandits are working for us for now. They're actually digging their own graves and they don't even know it," the pilot said in an amused tone. I raised an eyebrow.

"How so?" I questioned.

"I'm not allowed to say. Only Mr. Jack or General Wilhelm have that authority. They'll likely inform you when we get there," he told me. I nodded, but I was a little unhappy about it. The urge to know was killing me. But I would have to patient.

"Ok. I'll wait," I said idly.

"Mainly cause you have no other choice," the pilot said, smiling. I smirked. God, this guy was an asshole. But he was a fun asshole.

"That too," I said, staring out of the window again.

I ended up falling asleep on the shuttle a few minutes later. After a while of not having anything to do in a quiet shuttle, staying awake was hard to do. So I fell asleep with my head against the window and my mouth open slightly. I was snoring silently while a trail of drool went down the side of my mouth.

Then I could feel a weird sensation in my mouth. It tasted fleshy(don't ask me how I know that), and it was thin. It was a finger. I instantly thrust my hand out toward the person's throat before opening my eyes and seeing that I was choking a Hyperion officer. The officers alongside him were laughing their asses off.

"NOT funny," I said, walking up to the front of the shuttle and spitting in the trash can several times. "I assume we're here."

"No shit. Anyway, Mr. Jack would like to have a word with you," one of the officers said.

"Where is he?" I asked.

"He isn't _here_ per se, but there's a digital communicator on one of the upper floors of the base. Talk to him, then refer to General Wilhelm for your first assignment when he gets here," the officer told me. I nodded.

"Ok. Simple enough," I said, stretching my arms before stepping off of the shuttle. I could see that there were guard lights, loaders and soldiers patrolling on the ground with various doors all over the place that likely contained workers or additional guards.

Putting that aside, I walked into the building the officer mentioned that had the communicator inside. An engineer gestured for me to walk over to him and I did.

"You the Vault Hunter Jack assigned?" he asked me. The title 'Vault Hunter' still felt sort of weird to me.

"That's me," I told him nodding. He then gestured into the door next to him.

"Communicator's in there. And I suggest you play nice with Jack. He doesn't take nicely to disobedience or betrayal," the engineer warned me.

"I wouldn't either, but thanks for the heads up nonetheless," I said before walking inside the room. I noticed an ECHO was sitting on a table in the center of the room. I then hit the play button on it and Jack's face showed up on an ECHO.

"How you doing kiddo?" Jack questioned. I raised an eyebrow.

"Kiddo?" I questioned.

"In case you're wondering, I call just about everyone kiddo. Like I've told the other officers I've worked with or killed, keep it your pants," he said with a cocky smile. He struck me as the 'fun asshole' type. Again, I liked these kind of people.

"Oh, and in case you were wondering, this is a recording dumbass. What, do you think I had the time to associate with mercenaries like a dinner date?" Jack questioned. I face palmed. I'm attempting to chat with a fucking recording. I think these Hyperion officers need to find out what a communicator really is.

"Nah, I'm just fucking with you. It's a communicator. I control everything from Helios until I feel it's necessary to go down there. I.E., when the Vault Key is ready," he explained to me. I had so many questions through my head, it was ridiculous. But I had to take this one step at a time.

"Ok, I've got so many questions..."

"I'm sure you do," Jack said with the same cocky smile. I rolled my eyes.

"BUT, let's keep it simple. Firstly, what is Helios?" I asked.

"The giant fucking space station that's in front of Elpis," Jack said, gesturing up in the air like I'm sitting right next to him. "That's the Pandoran moon. It's visible on the planet year round, so everyone can see the space station and who really runs this planet. Sweet, huh?"

"Very," I said, wishing this room had windows where I could see the moon. "Next, what's the business about the Vault Key? What did you mean when you said you're charging it?"

"Ah. Well, I can say that if you tell any of the bandits or the Crimson Raiders about this piece of information, you're gonna regret it," Jack said in a dead serious tone. I knew he wasn't lying about that. I also needed to know who these Crimson Raiders were. I feel like that's a very important piece of information. They sounded very much related to Atlas soldiers, which made me blow air out of my nose angrily.

"Well, I'm sure you probably didn't know that there's actually more than one Vault on this planet. There are actually multiple ones all over this planet and all over the galaxy," Jack explained.

"That I didn't not know. When people mention the Vault, I assume there's only one Vault," I said.

"Well, you guessed wrong kiddo. Anyway, one of the Vaults I'm looking to open has the potential to wipe out all of the creatures and bandits that infest this planet. Then we'll a Hyperion utopia from the ashes! It's gonna be great, right?" Jack said after his temporary laughter died down.

"That's definitely a good idea, but what about the people who aren't bandits? I mean, some of them around bound to not be bandits, right?" I asked.

"I've thought about that. You see, I can control where the destruction happens. Which means I can make sure no one but the bandits suffer. It's a plan, right?" Jack said, making me smile in satisfaction.

"Oh, yes. Who are these Raiders?" I asked.

"A bunch of assholes if you want the short version," Jack said.

"That I could've figured out. I want the longer version," I told him.

"They're mercenaries. Former Vault Hunters and former Crimson Lancemen. They used to work for me, but they betrayed me and nearly killed me. But they didn't though, and I'm going to make them suffer for it," Jack said in a vicious tone. By the sound of things, they had affected him on a personal level. I wasn't going to question it though. But I definitely wanted the honor of killing the last of those Lancemen. They were going to die for what they tried to do to me and my family.

"Noted. How much longer do you think it will take to charge the Key?" I asked.

"Depends on how much Eridium I can get. This takes time to do, and these pesky Raiders keep attacking my Eridium mines," Jack said, making me think I understood what he wanted me to do.

"So you want me to kill them?" I questioned.

"Not in the way you might think. I've got an excellent solution to destroy them all at once, but I'm going to need your help. As long as you aren't as incompetent at everything except shooting things. This is a job of finesse," Jack explained.

"Believe me, I'm _far_ from incompetent. What do you need me to do?" I asked.

"You're going to play double agent. Some of my boys will rough you up a bit and you'll limp out of here with your ECHO and some of my loaders destroyed. There's someone in this area associated with the Raiders, and they can easily take you there. I'll explain what you need to do next when the situation comes. Until I say otherwise, you do everything the Raiders say. But also report everything they want you to do. Earn their trust. That's important. But we'll hold you here for a few weeks. These kinds of things take patience. Can you handle it?" Jack questioned.

I fell into a silence at this point. It's more than likely I was gonna be in pain for a long ass time. But for opening a Vault? Wiping out the scum of this planet? It was very much worth it.

"I can handle it," I assured him. He smiled in satisfaction.

"That's what I like to hear! You get this done, and we'll be best buds! Which can easily change if you turn your back on me. Just sayin," Jack said in an excited tone. "Anyway, me and Wilhelm are the only ones you have to listen to. Everyone else you can order around. You can have fun with that." Then the ECHO shut off. I smiled and walked out of the room while calibrating Jack's signal to my own ECHO.

"Time to get busy," I said as I disappeared through the door.

* * *

A/N: Kind of short, but I don't want to get to excited about writing this. I'm enjoying typing this already! Everything's coming along so naturally! Hope you all enjoyed it! Next chapter will be longer. Hopefully.


	2. Chapter 2 - The Deception Begins

A/N: Next chapter coming up! P.S: If people want me to, I might make a version like this with the original Vault Hunters.

* * *

I was placed inside of a prison cell and tied to the chair in the center of the room. I wiggled around a bit in my bindings. Yup. Tight enough to cause ligature marks. This is what we wanted. Every little detail had to be done right so I could sell this story to the person they mentioned.

"Nice scar on your eye," one of the soldiers complimented.

"Nearly caused me to go blind in that eye. But I managed to close my eyes before that happened," I told him before closing my eye. The scar continued down my eyelid. The strange feeling that it made every time that I blinked helped me remember it.

"Well, this is probably gonna hurt more than that did," his friend said.

"You're going to enjoy this, aren't you?" I said.

"A little," they both said at the same time. I smirked.

"Hmph. Bastards," I said with a good natured smile. "Alright, give me your best shot assholes."

A few weeks later, I certainly looked like a tortured prisoner. The rope had put ligature marks on my wrists, and I was extremely bloody from a number of knife stabs. Painful bruises from punching had caused minor swelling on certainly places with a few of my ribs being broken. I had to cough up blood on the ground a number of times from the damage. It hurt, but I was a pain eater. Almost like I had the Ashlyn medical condition. (Look it up kids)

"Well, well. Jack said he didn't think you'd have the stones for this job. Apparently you do," the Hyperion soldier who had done most of the torturing said. I looked at him with a steely eye.

"I do. Now, I need to 'escape' from this place," I said, making the officer smile.

"Yeah. Now, you've been working your way with those bindings, they've become worn enough for you to break out of them. We're not here, you knocked out one of our officers, took his gun, and used his clothes to walk out of the prison without us knowing. That's pretty much the story," he said, putting my ECHO and a Hyperion officer's outfit on the floor in front of me.

"Perfect. And remember, you're not here," I told him, making him raise his hands in surrender and walk out of the room. I freed my hands out of the worn rope and began getting dressed in the Hyperion outfit to head out before attaching my ECHO on my belt.

I walked out of the room and walked out of the prison while trying to make it seem like I wasn't injured.

"Halt, officer. State your destination," the loader at the gate told me. I drew my Jakobs pistol and shot the loader in the eye before alarms in the prison flared up.

I slid down the rock formation near up where the prison was perched and went into a bandit's garage. I could see him kissing the roof of his car like it was his wife. I shook my head in disbelief before blasting him in the head with my pistol.

"Idiot," I said before taking the keys off of his corpse and driving off at top speed toward the garage Hyperion mentioned. I removed the helmet and they Hyperion outfit and threw it out of the car before my focus was solely on getting this job done.

I made a sharp turn at the garage before hopping out. I could see a fat woman with her attention solely focused on some type of machine in her mechanic shop. I limped up to her and shouted to get her attention.

"Hey! Can you help a guy out?" I asked her, waving my right arm while limping toward her. She turned and smiled at me.

"Sure I can hon. What do you need?" she said, walking toward my direction before getting a good look at my appearance. "Now, I see what happened to you. What happened to you?"

"I got kidnapped by a few Hyperion soldiers as soon as I got on this planet. Bastards tortured me for weeks before I got out," I told her with a tired tone.

"You're a Vault Hunter?" she asked me.

"Haven't seen one Vault yet, but yeah. That's what I'm looking to find," I told her, nodding.

"I think Sanctuary will think you're a sight for sore eyes. I can get you there, but we need to get you fixed up first," she told me. I sighed in relief.

"That would be nice, thank you. What's your name?" I asked.

"Ellie, sweetie. You?" she asked.

"Robert. Now, you mentioned Sanctuary. Who or what is it?" I asked.

"It's the last standing resistance against Handsome Jack, the leader of Hyperion. You want your revenge against Jack and Hyperion as a whole? They're your best bet," Ellie explained to me. I nodded. For them to have that type of reputation, that meant they were definitely something that needed to be dealt with immediately.

"Thanks for the info. Know where I can find them?" I asked.

"I can give you the Fast Travel coordinates to it, but I think you ought to get yourself healed up first and then I'll make contact with them to tell them that you're coming. You wouldn't want to be shot as soon as you get there," Ellie told me. I nodded. It sounded like a pretty solid plan. Once I got into Sanctuary and got the first job from them, I would contact Jack and figure out how I should go about the situation I get into.

Ellie had walked into the garage and came back out with three healing hypos in her hand. I injected two of them into my neck and healed my wounds for the most part. I kept the last hypo and stored it in my ECHO just in case.

"How'd you get the ECHO?" she asked me.

"Knocked a guard out and stole his ECHO on the way out. Wouldn't have gotten past the loader at the gate without it. But I need to move fast. They might be looking for me," I said, checking behind me subtly.

"You don't have to worry about that. This place is filled with bandit patrols. They would likely figure in your state, you wouldn't last two seconds," Ellie said.

"To be honest, so did I. But no time to dwell on that now. I need to go," I said.

"Alright. First, lemme see your ECHO so I can put ya in contact with someone at Sanctuary that can prevent you from getting shot," Ellie said, going on her ECHO. The grinder on the side of us caught my interest and I climbed the front of it to get a better look inside. I could hear indistinctive chatter from Ellie, but I figured it was non important. I had the gist of what she was doing.

Looking further inside the grinder, I could see that there was gore of different kinds caked on the walls. The smell gave it away that it was old. I wrinkled my nose.

 _"Wonder how many people have been killed in this thing?"_ I thought. But I wasn't going to stay in the grinder to be another victim in case this does not go my way.

I hopped down and I could see Ellie was still talking to however she was in contact with, so I summoned my classic Jakobs pistol to my hand and began spinning it round and round like a gunslinger. This was how I loved to distract myself. By mindlessly spinning a revolver.

I spun the chamber while it was still lodged in the gun before jerking the gun to the left hard and quick, causing the chamber to reveal the bullets in the clip. One bullet was missing from the chamber from that one I used on the bandit, but I didn't bother to replace it. I could make do with one less bullet easy.

"Alright, you're good to go. Just makes sure to put your guns up before the soldiers think different," Ellie told me before pointing to the Fast Travel. "Go to the location marked Sanctuary in the system. It'll take you there." I turned my head curiously before snapping the revolver chamber back in place.

"If Hyperion finds out you have a Fast Travel leading directly to Sanctuary, wouldn't you be in some serious trouble?" I asked her, truly curious.

"I always wipe the location from the Fast Travel system, so no one can travel there. I'm not an idiot," Ellie said.

"Didn't take you for one. Thanks for the help," I said kindly.

"No problem. Just deal with Jack once and for all, and that'll be more than enough," Ellie told me. I gave her a two fingered salute before using the Fast Travel to head to Sanctuary.

I materialized in front of the Fast Travel, and I was in a room with two exits on opposite sides from each other. So far, I was far from impressed with the place.

I walked outside, and then I could see a number of civilians and Crimson Lancemen soldiers alike around the area. Curling my left hand into a fist, I restrained myself from losing my mind and shooting every Lancemen in sight. Then I could see one of them walk up to me. The urge to shoot him was almost crippling.

"Hey! I've never seen you before. How'd you get in? The front gate hasn't even been touched," he demanded. I managed to calm myself down and look at him with a cool expression before speaking.

"I'm a Vault Hunter. Last time I checked, _you_ need _my_ help," I said, crossing my arms over my chest in a commanding way. The Raider immediately changed his attitude.

"You're a Vault Hunter? Oh, sorry about that. I'm surprised you even made it here because of Jack," he told me.

"So I am, believe it or not. So, you have anything for me to do?" I asked.

"Refer to the mechanic near the front gate of the city. He'll tell you what you need to do," the Raider told me. I nodded and began walking to this mechanic he mentioned. How did Hyperion not take this place over? There are very few soldiers and no blockades. Hyperion has an army, and General Wilhelm looked like a Grade A plus fucking plus badass. I must be missing something here. They had to have something preventing Hyperion from getting in...

But I decided to head to this mechanic that the soldier had mentioned and I ended up at this place called Scooter's garage. No other place that you would find a mechanic in a city like this. So I walked through the garage door in the front and I could see a man with grease covering his face asleep in a chair, his feet propped up. I walked up to him and shook his shoulder.

"Uh, are you the mechanic?" I asked as I was shaking him. He shot up suddenly at one point and looked at me.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm a Vault Hunter. Uh, one of your soldiers asked me to refer to you about something that needed to be done for Sanctuary. So, what is it?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah. Plan B. Get the fusion cells that are around this place and this Eridium," he said, gesturing around his shop before pulling out four bars of refined Eridium.

I looked at it longingly. I knew Eridium was a beautiful substance after refinement, but seeing it was a whole nother ball park. I grabbed it, but as soon as I made contact with it, I felt something travel up my spine and through my bones. Then when I could focus again, the Eridium was gone. Before I could even comment on the situation, I passed out.

* * *

A/N: Now, the initial idea that I had for my story was that I was going to get my Siren powers from these Eridium bars Scooter promised. But I decided to make my character's change to being a Siren much longer, so I decided that finding Eridium after the Captain Flynt fight was appropriate. So here's me bringing that back. And though it is rare, you can in fact find Eridium before you collect the first four bars from Scooter in the game. It's happened to me on several occasions. Usually in Bullymong bone piles. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	3. Chapter 3 - Plan B

A/N: Well, that Eridium move was a decent idea to start the Siren powers I would say. Anyways, coming up with more ideas for this story is a process, so I'll do what I can. Cause after Sanctuary is attacked, I'll have to go with my gut. Just give me some time people.

* * *

I groaned as I felt a searing pain spreading down my chest, like someone was drawing on it with a hot knife.

"You ought to stay on that bed," a voice told me.

I looked over to the right and saw a middle aged doctor standing next to a restrained patient on a blood soaked mattress. Or butcher was the right idea, judging by the amount of blood on him. But I took his advice and stayed on the bed.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Hell if I know. I've never seen a case where tattoos draw themselves on a person's body," he said, making my eyes widen.

"Wait, what?" I said, beginning to take off my shirt. Once it was off, I could see that he was right. Tattoos were beginning to form on my chest and arms, which explained the hot pain I was feeling.

"Yeah, never seen anything like it. And I've seen wounds and injuries of a wide degree. Nothing comes close to this kind of weird however," he said.

"I don't think anyone has. What do you suppose what'll happen once they finish?" I asked.

"Either it'll do absolutely nothing, you turn into an alien, or it'll kill ya. There's a number of possibilities," he said, making me groan.

"Nothing I can do but wait and find out, huh?" I said.

"Yup. But hopefully you won't die. We need all the help we can get. We lost two Raiders trying to get the core to protect this city, including a Lieutenant. Times are tough," the doctor said. I counted a mental victory in my head. Less soldiers for them means all the easier for Hyperion to take this place. Plus, good riddance to those Lancemen scum.

"That's gotta be rough. But if I die, I'm not sure this city will be able to stand too much of a chance," I said, before thinking. _"I_ know _this city doesn't stand a chance. Cause I'm not on its side."_

"I think you're right. Well, just rest and try and get back out there as fast as you can. And there's your ECHO," he said, pointing to it. "It went off once while you were out, but I can't access your calls unless I have your DNA and audio signature. Paranoid, much?"

"Very. Been a merc before I turned 18, been shooting a gun and learning how to fight for even longer than that," I told him. "I wouldn't go as far to call it paranoia, but rather just being very careful. Can you hand me my ECHO?"

He grabbed my ECHO off one of my tables and tossed it my way. I caught it with one hand and saw that the contact was from an unknown source. Probably Hyperion. I decided to return it, but I had to whisper.

"Who is this?" I asked.

 _"Report,"_ a hard and robotic voice said. I'm thinking this was Wilhelm.

"I'm inside. Ran into some troubles, but they'll be dealt with soon," I whispered.

 _"Sufficient work. Infiltrate their ranks, and set them up for the trap. We will be in contact soon,"_ Wilhelm said before ending the call. Short and to the point. That's how I liked my conversations in the field.

I put the ECHO on my belt before laying back down on my bed and watched the tattoos sear on my body. It was a little unnerving, not to mention somewhat painful, but I knew there was nothing that I could do. I would just have to wait it out.

I was lying in that bed for about 30 minutes before I noticed the pain had stopped. After a while, you just sort of block it out, so I didn't even notice that it stopped.

I stood and took a look at the tattoos. Then something unnerving clicked in my head. Are these... _Siren_ tattoos?

"Oh, holy fucking shit," I said aloud. The doctor then turned towards me.

"What?" he asked, before looking directly at my chest. "Yeah, that likely means one thing. Not really another explanation."

"That I'm the first male Siren ever? Yeah, I'd say it's pretty fucking unnatural," I said, damn near ready to rip my hair out. "What do you suppose I do?"

"Well, the only thing you really can do is figure out how to use whatever power you get, and use it to kill stuff easier," he suggested, which was really the only suggestion. But I couldn't hide this from Hyperion. I figured if I did, I was dead. And I did not want to be on the opposing side of this company. But I needed a better time to do so.

"Well, refer to Scooter, the mechanic for the plan to help support this place," the doctor told me. "By the way, in case you were wondering, the name's Zed."

"Robert. Yeah, I'll get out of here and do that," I said, rising to my feet and putting on my shirt while walking out of the area. I then began to walk back to the garage where Scooter was and went down to talk to him. He was standing in the middle of the garage, oblivious to the world.

"Scooter?" I asked. He then turned to me.

"Oh, hey man. I haven't seen you since you passed out. You alright?" Scooter asked.

"I'm fine. Just tell me what I need to do," I said.

"Well, the only bit of Eridium I had disappeared as soon as you touched it. Unless you can somehow convince Earl to give you the last fuel cell, then we're out of options," Scooter explained.

"Oh, I'm sure I can convince him," I said. "Where is this Earl you mentioned?"

"In some run down motel near the center of town. Behind a metal door with a purple neon sign," Scooter told me.

"I'll find it," I said before walking off. Whatever this plan was, it was supposed to help with protecting this place. Though I'm sure whatever Jack had planned would be sufficient enough to destroy this place. But I would need to know more about this plan of theirs before drawing any conclusions. But first things first. Get this fuel cell from this Earl Scooter mentioned.

I found the motel after a few minutes of searching and pounded on the metal door. A man with crazy looking eyes peeked out.

"Whatchu want?" he asked.

"You have a fuel cell that I need," I said simply. Let's try to do this the nice way.

"Just buy something and I'll toss in this crap fuel cell. Just touching it made two of my fingers rot off. And I only accept Eridium. Cash is for clowns boy!" he exclaimed.

"I don't have any Eridium. Just give me the fuel cell since you obviously don't need it," I said.

"Whatever. Take it," Earl said, tossing the cell out of the door through a small crack. "I don't ever wanna see it again."

"You won't have to worry about that," I said, picking up the cell and putting it in my ECHO. "Got the cell. What's next?"

"Now, just plug those fuel cells into the ignition primers. I'll mark em on your ECHO to help you out," Scooter said. I then got three different locations on my tracker.

"What are these gonna do?" I asked.

"You'll see," Scooter said in an excited tone.

"No, I don't trust that tone. What is it going to do?" I asked with a stern tone.

"Alright, fine. Plug em in, and the city should start flying. At least until those fuel cells run out of energy. Should make Sanctuary less of an easy target for those Hyperion mortars," Scooter explained. I frowned. That was definitely going to be a problem.

"Alright, that's no problem. I'll have it done in a minute," I told Scooter.

"Cool," he said. After I got out of contact with him, I then contact with Jack. I figured news like this had to go directly to him.

 _"Oh, hey! Uh, ah, these pretzels suck... How's your day been buddy?"_ Jack asked with what sounded like a full mouth.

"It's been fine. But I've got something you might want to hear. They've got plans to get this city in the air to avoid your the mortar strikes from Helios," I explained.

 _"Oh, that I expected. Sanctuary is known as one of the biggest mining ships for a reason. Cause of the friggin rockets under the city. But yeah, that's under control cupcake,"_ Jack told me.

"Really?" I questioned.

 _"Really. Don't sound so shocked. I've got this planned out for the most part. Unless there's something completely game changing, just follow the plan,"_ Jack told me.

"Noted. And, I've also got something else that you might want to know about, but it can wait," I told him.

 _"Nah, go ahead and tell me now. Why bother waiting?"_ Jack asked.

"Cause it's better if I show you rather than I tell you," I told him.

 _"Fine, but when I see it, it better be good. The suspense is killing me. Now get on with it,"_ Jack told me. I then cut off the call before going to insert the fuel cells.

"Roland said we needed an exit strategery in case he ever disappeared," Scooter said.

"Disappeared? Where is he?" I asked.

"He got kidnapped by the Bloodshots, but we'll worry about that later. Anyway, he really wanted to meet you though. Raiders ain't gone last long without some new blood, and you look just like the kinda blood we need. Like we got O-negative blood, and so do you!" Scooter exclaimed. I shook my head at the poor joke before inserting the last core.

"That's the last one," I told him.

"Hey, thanks for grabbing all of that stuff for me! Third degree burns are best taken in shifts. Now, to see the fruits of your loins, this city's gonna fly!" Scooter exclaimed. Then I felt the ground under me begin to rock violently like it was being shaken, but was soon accompanied by a powering down noise. Looks like it didn't work.

"Or... not. Damn. Well, now we REALLY gotta find Roland. You know what? Maybe get to Roland's place? I think he might've left a message for a situation like this," Scooter told me.

"Where's his place?" I asked.

"In the center of town where the archive center is," Scooter told me. "It was the best place to have it."

I looked past the giant pillar standing in front of me and noticed the archive room right in front of me. Then all of a sudden my body went stiff and I started jerking erratically.

"What's happening?" I asked aloud. Right after I said that, a huge fire nova was released from me and several citizens around me were burnt to a crisp. I looked at my hands, before noticing my tattoos were going through my clothes. Strangely enough, I felt elated and powerful. I held up my hand and a purple ball with white energy in the center was there.

"Niiiccce," I said, desperately wanting to try this thing out. But I couldn't do it on the citizens in case someone actually notices what just happened. Until now, I'll pretend like I know nothing.

I made the energy ball disappear before walking in front of the Raider in front of the archive building and he tilted his head at me.

"What the hell happened?" he asked.

"Sirenness?" I asked with a hesitant tone. "I'm not sure there's actually a word for it. Anyway, does Roland have a message or something?"

"Yeah, he does. Just make sure to get rid of Hyperion for us," he said, holding out the key. I grabbed it before looking him in the eye while trying to restrain myself to shoot him in the face.

"We'll see what happens," I said, before unlocking the door to the archive center and playing the message on the ECHO lying on the table.

 _"If you're hearing this, I'm in trouble. Focus on getting Plan B finished before you even think about coming after me. I left info about my whereabouts in my safe. Good luck,"_ the message played. I went upstairs and saw a safe on the right side of me and opened it, only to find another ECHO message. God, there were too many of these things.

"This is the Firehawk. Come to Frostburn Canyon, or people will die," a distorted voice said. That meant the Firehawk could be anyone.

"Scooter, who's the Firehawk?" I asked.

"The Firehawk? You mean the mass murdering bounty hunter? Aw, crap! If the Firehawk's got him, Roland's in DEEP. You gotta get to Frostburn Canyon and rescue his ass!" Scooter exclaimed. I shook my head. No wonder Hyperion was about to win hands down. Most of these people were fucking lazy or too scared to do anything. Nevertheless, I went to the Fast Travel and used the marker Scooter gave me to teleport out of this city. I had enough of it.

"Wilhelm, I have news. Roland was captured by a mercenary called the Firehawk. Requesting further instructions," I said.

 _"We are aware of this situation, and it will be handled. Follow any leads you can about the Firehawk's identity, and inform us who it is. He or she may be an enemy that evaded our clutches before,"_ Wilhelm explained.

 _"Consider it done,"_ I said, shutting of the call. Now to find Frostburn Canyon.

* * *

A/N: I was considering blowing this chapter off, but I figured nah. Let's go ahead and give the people what they wanted to see. Anyway, how is our double agent for Hyperion gonna react when he sees Lilith is alive?


	4. Chapter 4 - 'Freeing' Roland

A/N: Took me forever to get back to this story, but I'm back and let's get to this shit. To be honest, I was kinda putting it off. Did a bit of brainstorming on the future of this story, and I think I've got an end game. Also, I initially had a plan to make this OC/Angel, but that was foiled cause of the overall story line, so it's gonna be OC/Maya.

* * *

I walked into Frostburn Canyon while keeping my Tediore SMG at my side. Now it was time to find Roland.

"Change of plans. Roland isn't here," Scooter told me over the ECHO.

"And you couldn't have told me this BEFORE I got over here?" I asked with impatience.

"I just found out, so don't blame me. Right now, the best solution is to help us bust him out of the Hyperion prison they're keeping him at. Get back here as fast as you can," Scooter explained.

"What about the Firehawk?" I asked Scooter.

"The Firehawk's a dangerous one. But if you think you can handle him, be my guest. Just try not to die buddy," he told me.

"That will not be a problem," I told Scooter before continuing.

On the way down to the Firehawk's lair, I ran into a few bandits that were camped out in this area. A lot of them were pyro nomads, which really explained how they could stand to live in a place this cold. Regardless, these bandits were not going to be much of a challenge.

"Kill him!" one of the bandits yelled when they saw me. All of the bandits in the immediate area started shooting at me once that bandit pointed me out.

I hid behind a container for cover while peeking out occasionally to shoot my Tediore SMG at them while pyro nomads tried to press an advantage on me by walking up on me with flamethrowers. This I would not allow to happen.

I unpinned a grenade and threw it a little in the air before kicking it directly into a nomad's face before quickly drawing my non-elemental Dahl pistol and burst fired the gun, exploding the grenade to drop his shield and the extra bullets to kill the nomad. I did the same tactic to his friend as he was was dumb enough not to run back and take cover.

I swapped to my Jakobs sniper and blasted the bandits that refused to advance. Then all of a sudden, my body went rigid. Several trails of powerful fire swirled around my body and surrounded me like a vortex. I looked at my glowing tattoos and smiled. Regardless of whether being a Siren would cause me to get hunted for the rest of my life, these abilities would be beyond helpful on the road to bringing order to Pandora.

"Man, this is gonna be too easy now," I said to myself before continuing.

As I walked, I threw my hand a few times to see if I could figure out what my power was. At one point, a ball of energy flew out of the center of my hand and it hit a part of the rock formation, breaking a sizable chunk of the rock. But it obliterated the rock so well, not even a pebble fell. I willed the energy to be summoned to my hand and an energy ball just sat there like it was a sports ball. It was a thing of beauty and power. I couldn't help but grin like a fool at this kind of power.

The bandits were nothing more than a minor nuisance as I continued toward the Firehawk's lair. At one point, I reached a cave that had proximity flamethrowers attached on walls and ceilings. Not very hard to dodge if you paid attention.

I reached a big platform only to be disappointed as there was no one there. There was even evidence of someone living here. Man, this was not what I was expecting.

"Scooter, the Firehawk wasn't here. Did anyone recently arrive to Sanctuary?" I asked him.

"Yeah, one of our closes allies. In fact, she'll be helping you rescue Roland," Scooter told me.

"I'll make note of that. I'll head back to Sanctuary," I said before shutting off the call. I then immediately switched the call to Jack.

"We've got a problem. You've got Roland held in a prison, right?" I asked.

 _"Yup. I assume the Raiders want you to spring him?"_ Jack asked.

"Yeah. As this interferes with your capturing him in the first place, how should I proceed?" I asked him.

 _"Spring him,"_ Jack said, making me make a face of disbelief.

"Seriously?" I asked.

 _"Seriously. I'll tell my staff to evacuate quickly otherwise they'll get in your way,"_ Jack said.

"I would assume you want Roland taken care of during this plan of yours," I said.

 _"You got it kiddo. Just spring him. Nothing but a few loaders will be in your way. Just keep lying among the sheep, wolf. And I almost forgot to mention. You'll have yourself a partner soon,"_ Jack said, making me raise an eyebrow.

"I work better alone," I told him.

 _"Yeah, but granted, there's nothing up here for the lovely lady to kill besides my my men, and I don't want to lose too many of them cause she's bored. Just work with it cupcake,"_ Jack said.

"Fine. Just better hope this lady of yours is competent," I said, shutting off the call. I didn't fancy working with anyone else, much less a woman. I've had plenty of bad experiences when it comes to working with women. If you would call all of them trying to kill me bad experiences, then you would understand.

But I walked toward the nearby Fast Travel and set my destination to get to Sanctuary. Heading towards Scooter's garage, I jumped over the rail and talked to Scooter.

"Alright, where's this ally of yours?" I asked.

"She'll be here in a minute," Scooter told me.

"Alright, then go ahead and give me the run down," I said.

"A bandit broke out of the Friendship Gulag, which is the prison they're keeping Roland, a few days ago. That's an easy way in," a woman said, approaching me. The woman herself didn't catch my eye, even though she was pretty hot. No, the tattoos on her arm caught my eye. I raised an eyebrow.

"Well, well. He-llo," I said, purposely dragging out the words. "And you are?"

"Lilith. You're the mercenary that survived Jack, right?" she asked me.

"That's me. I would assume you're coming with me to bust him out?" I asked.

"You would be right in that assumption. Scooter. Make sure to watch over this place," Lilith said.

"You got it," Scooter assured her. I walked past her toward the Fast Travel station and she decided to speak up.

"What was with that greeting?" she asked me.

"Isn't it obvious? You're hot," I said with absolutely no shame.

"Wow, you don't hesitate, do you?" she asked.

"I've been shot at, attempted to be blown up, poisoned, my throat slit almost open while I was sleeping, and a bunch of other shit. Being afraid to tell a girl she's hot is for extremely shy characters. I am not such a person. Plus it's an absolute waste of time," I told her.

"Glad to see you're confident. The forward thing kind of has always worked for me," Lilith said.

"We'll see what happens after this war. Then I'll worry about a future," I told her evenly. "There's a hole in the back of the prison we can use to get directly to Roland."

"Good. I can teleport us out as soon as we get him," Lilith said, confirming my suspicions about being a Siren.

"I'm pretty curious about something. What do you make of this?" I said, forming a Phasebomb in my hand. Lilith looked at it with a curious look.

"I'd say that's some pretty good tricks you've got," she said in an unimpressed voice. I rolled down the sleeve of the arm that was carrying in the Phasebomb and showed her my glowing tattoos. Her eyes widened.

"Ok, now I'm officially confused. You're a Siren? Wha- How?" she asked.

"Dunno. Was born with it I guess. I'm a case of one out of damn near infinity for this to happen. But I've grown used to it already. I use it to the best of my ability to kill shit," I said evenly.

"Well... good on you. But I'm glad you'll be able to pull your own weight," Lilith said.

"I'll do more than that," I said, traveling the two of us to The Dust. Ellie was nice enough to let me access Scooter's Catch-a-Ride and get a car for free. She was a nice gal. Too bad that she'd be dead for going against Hyperion.

I drove us around the Gulag, and Lilith teleported us to where Scooter marked the hole for us to go in on my ECHO. I climbed in through the hole and made my way through the prison, the Siren following closely behind me.

"Where do you think we are?" she whispered to me.

"Dunno. Probably in the back of the prison. They didn't take me that far," I said as I kept crawling. "Place will be crawling with loaders. Engineers are usually out of the prison around this time with loaders taking their place. At least they don't torture me," I said as I kept crawling. Eventually I reached the back of a very small cell with the bars still in the front. I grabbed the bars and ripped them out of place before passing them back to Lilith to get them out of the way.

Looking around, I could see that there were a bunch of loaders patrolling the area, but none of them seemed to be looking this way. I turned to Lilith.

"Stay here. I'll signal you on the ECHO if I need your help," I said, before moving through the hole and lowering myself into a crouch. I moved silently along this row in hopes that Roland was in one of these cells. I then contacted Wilhelm for a little assistance.

"Wilhelm, where is Roland? I'm in the prison, but I don't know where he is. I'd prefer not to have any loaders see me so I won't have an excuse to destroy any," I whispered.

 _"Jack has informed me of this situation. I will send his location to you,"_ Wilhelm said, shutting off the call. After a few seconds, I got an exact location of where they had Roland restrained. It was in the nearest building on the right, which was perhaps planned to my convenience. I decided to head back to Lilith to tell her of my recent discovery. Well, sort of.

"Ok, he's not in any of the small little cells along this row. Let's start searching the buildings. Let's start with that one over there," I said, pointing to the one on our right. "It's more than likely they would keep him in a place that's further back from the entrance."

"Alright. I can teleport us in there. Let's hope there aren't loaders guarding him, even though there most likely will be," Lilith said, grabbing my arm and teleporting us in a flash of purple. In the room, we could see two engineers punching the absolute shit out of a black man tied down in a chair. God, why did he have to be a fellow black brother? There aren't many of us around. Regardless of him having my skin color, he still was on the wrong side. And he had to go down. But that would come in time.

The two engineers turned to us once we flashed in only to look directly in the barrel of my Dahl pistol. Lilith had already taken the initiative and grabbed both of the engineers. She ignited her hands with fire energy and melted both of their faces. Their yells were muffled under their helmets, so it made for a generally quiet takedown.

"Should've taken the day off," I remarked idly. I hate that I had to let that happen. I guess these two were foolish enough not to take Jack's warning to get out of the prison when he told them to. And now they were both dead cause of that mistake. Roland looked up from his chair, and his face was slightly bruised, but he looked alright.

"Those engineers never could punch worth a damn. Though they're pretty creative in making other ways to hurt you," I said as I cut his bindings with my knife.

"So you're the mercenary that escaped out of this prison. Under Wilhelm's nose no less," Roland said.

"Now's not the time. Can you walk?" I asked, standing back for him to get up. He rose to his feet no problem.

"They didn't really do much to me surprisingly. I've been here for about a week," Roland said, flexing his shoulders. I turned to Lilith.

"Teleport us out of here," I told her. She gladly obliged and grabbed the two of us before teleporting us back out of the hole we were in earlier and next to our runner. I put a friendly hand on Lilith's shoulder only to be immediately electrocuted by a purple bolt.

"Ah, fuck! If you don't want to be touched, just say so," I said, shaking my hand quickly to try and get rid of the pain. But all of a sudden I felt more exhausted and felt a different, more flowing sensation in my bones. It was like a stream had suddenly spawned in my arms.

"I didn't do that. I don't know what the hell that was, but it certainly wasn't me," Lilith said. I moved my neck to the right with a cracking sound to relieve it of stress before pointing to the runner.

"Only two seats. Since you can teleport, let us take the car," I told her.

"I can't just teleport infinitely. That puts strain on my powers," Lilith told me.

"One more time won't hurt you, I don't think. I don't fancy walking all the way back to the Fast Travel from here. We need to make haste though. Won't be long until they figure out he's missing," I urged her. She sighed before teleporting to the Fast Travel. I hopped in the driver's seat of the Runner and Roland hopped in the turret before we quickly made for the Fast Travel.

"Impressive work," Roland said.

"The bandits who tunneled themselves out of the prison helped out. Least we got you out of there," I said, squinting my eyes at the dust moving in front of my vision. "I sincerely hope you have a plan to get us an up on Jack."

"I do. But we need to get back to Sanctuary and away from Hyperion's prying eyes," Roland said. I nodded and quickly reverse parked the into the garage and got out. Ellie looked happy at the sight.

"You got him out! Good on ya honey," she said as I jumped out of the Runner.

"Thanks. Wasn't that hard when you have a Siren on your side," I said.

"It's even better to have two of them. I just wish one of them could teleport," Lilith said, making a not so subtle glance at me.

"I'd love the power of teleportation. Would save me so much time," I said idly.

"Just what am I missing?" Roland asked.

"Let's get back to Sanctuary first before we get started," I said, using the Fast Travel to head back to Sanctuary.


	5. Chapter 5 - Bringing Sanctuary Down

I paced back and forth and pretended like the information they had just given me was new. Hopefully I could kill these bandits at one point instead of pretending like I was their friend. Or maybe Jack's plan would do that. I didn't mind either.

"Ok. Lemme get this straight. Jack plans on resurrecting an Eridian monster to wipe us all out," I summed up in simple terms.

"Basically," Roland said. I shook my head.

"As if things couldn't possibly get worse. But you suggested that you had a plan when I helped you. What is it?" I asked.

"Well, our plan is to steal the Vault Key before Jack can open the Vault himself. Jack needs Eridium to charge the key, and the more Eridium he has, the closer he gets to taking control of that Warrior and wiping us out. Now if anyone knows where the key's being kept, it's my spy out in Tundra Express. He's as good as gathering intel as he is at drinking. So I'm sure he's sleeping off last night's booze as we speak. You'll need to get a fire weapon to wake him up. I'll explain when you get out there," Roland explained to me.

"I'll be sure get out there as fast as I can. But try not to get yourself killed by Hyperion while I'm gone, mmkay?" I said with a smile. _"Or rather do,"_ I added as an afterthought. Regardless of my thoughts, Lilith smirked back and Roland's expression did not change.

"Yeah, we'll do our best," Lilith said. I gave them a two-fingered salute before jumping off the top ledge and walked toward the Fast Travel.

Once I arrived there, I looked on my map. Tundra Express was an alternate path from Three Horns Divide, so I Fast Traveled there and got myself a Runner to head toward the Express. I figured Jack had this part covered. Perhaps even fed Roland's spy the information. So I didn't bother calling it in this time around.

Once I arrived in the Express after having to fight my way through a cave full of Bullymongs and Snow Skags, I arrived at the Express.

 _"You'll have to signal our man. I'll bet anything he's sleeping off a hangover, so you'll need to wake him up,"_ Roland said.

"What does that have to do with needing a fire weapon?" I asked, holding my Dahl fire pistol in my hand.

 _"This place is inhabited by small, insect like creatures known as Varkids. They evolve if you injure them enough into stronger forms of themselves. They make a loud, irritating screeching noise if you light them on fire. It's how you're going to wake up our spy. You got a fire gun right?"_ Roland asked.

"Yes I do. I'll wake him up," I said, continuing past the initial entrance. But when I went far enough to spot the Fast Travel, two people were waiting near it. One of them was a beautiful woman wearing a yellow shirt that looked slightly armored. One of her arms was sleeved with a glove covering her hand. The other was not. It was completely naked, but covered from finger to shoulder with Siren tattoos. That definitely caught my attention.

The other person was a man, or at least who I could assume was a man. He was in a tightly fitted sneaking suit with a mask that resembled Claude Glass. I noticed that he had four fingers and three toes, which suggested he was not human. But he definitely looked like a professional assassin.

The Siren tapped the Assassin next to her and pointed directly at me once she saw me. They then walked over to me, and I approached them cautiously.

"Are you Robert?" the Siren asked me.

"Who wants to know?" I asked.

"I'm Maya. This is Zer0, or at least from what I was told. Handsome Jack sent us here to wait for you," the Siren said. I raised my eyebrow at her.

"He only mentioned you. He didn't tell me about him," I said, pointing to Zer0.

"Because he arrived sort of last minute. And instead of telling you about him, he said it would be a nice surprise for you. Two partners for the price of one, or something like that," Maya said, making me smile and shake my head. God, this dude was a good time. I loved that.

"Alright. Guess we're working together. I assume he's informed you of his plan?" I asked. Both mercenaries nodded. "Alright, well I'll fill you in the details that he didn't tell you. The leader of the Crimson Raiders wants us to ignite some Varkids so we can wake up his spy. Of course, we follow his orders only temporarily until Jack's plan has come to fruition."

"You want us to ignite them, not kill them?" Maya asked.

"I guess. And I'm thinking we have to set several of them on fire at once," I told them. They nodded and there was no more to be said as we went down to the areas where the Varkids were nesting.

While I moved quickly using speedy, strong strides, Maya moved in a sprinter's type of way, putting all of her weight forward for maximum speed. Zer0 moved like a ninja, his strides nothing but a blur, all of his weight moving forward, and only moving by the tips of his feet. The way they dealt with their opponents was likely going to be different too. It would be interesting to see.

Varkids then began coming out of the strange looking structures that we saw when we were on top of the hill. I aimed my Dahl pistol at the nearest Varkid and shot it. It took about three shots before it was lit on fire from my shots, followed by a loud and irritating screeching noise. No wonder these things would be used to wake his spy up. This could wake a deaf elephant up.

 _"Well done. Now set some on fire before that one dies,"_ Roland told me. I wasn't even going to ask how he knew that I had lit the thing on fire.

Maya had a fire Maliwan SMG and she was firing slowly so she wouldn't kill them too fast. Zer0 didn't seem to have a fire weapon, so he ran around and diverted their attention to make it easier for us to deal with the Varkids.

Eventually we finally got five Varkids on fire at the same time and initially, we got no response. But eventually we could hear someone yawning over the ECHO.

 _"Hey Vault Hunter. Welcome to the Crimson Raiders,"_ he said.

"Why are you drunk on the job?" I asked him.

 _"Sorry you had to wake me up. Bloodwing and I may have celebrated too hard when she and I raided a Hyperion convoy. Ain't that right, Blood?"_ he asked. Then I could hear a screech of confirmation from who I could assume was Bloodwing.

 _"Hehehe. Easy girl. So... a Hyperion train is speeding through the Tundra Express. If my intel's good, and it usually is, the Vault Key itself might be on board. My advice? Do what I'd do. Steal the Key, get drunk, pass out,"_ he said, with a screech of confirmation from Bloodwing.

 _"Without the Key, Jack can't control the Warrior. You've got to hijack that train. My old friend Tina can help you - go talk to her,"_ Roland said, marking my ECHO with the coordinates. I then linked my ECHO data with Maya and Zer0's ECHOs so they would end up getting the destinations that I would be getting. And the audio.

"What's next?" Maya asked me.

"Well, we need to head to Roland's bomb maker to hijack the train," I said.

"Aren't we attacking Hyperion rather than helping it?" Maya questioned. I shrugged.

"Yeah, I don't know. But Jack has been right about everything they've tried to do so far. I think he expected this one, and he's probably got something set up," I said. "Let's just roll with it."

I continued toward the destination that was marked and the three of us walked like we gave no fucks. Any bandit we ran into was either blasted in the brain by my Dahl pistol, Phaselocked(At least that's what Maya called it when I asked her about it) by Maya and incinerated by her Maliwan SMG, or sniped by Zer0 with his Hyperion sniper. Felt like I was running with the most badass squad on Pandora. (ain't nobody fucking with my clique, clique, clique, clique, clique. Sorry, couldn't resist)

"Tina's a bomb maker and a friend of mine. I've saved her life a few times and she's saved mine even more. She'll help you out, but here's a tip. Don't make any sudden movements near her," Roland warned. I simply shook my head. I chalked it up to typical paranoia. Couldn't blame her with Hyperion after everyone associated with the Crimson Raiders.

We ended up outside of a giant blast door that was obviously meant to keep unwanted visitors out. There were also bandits outside of it, which suggested the bomb maker was forced to hide from them.

"Alright, looks like a few bandits camped out here. Possibly chasing after Roland's dealer. Maya, I want you with me to take care of these guys and help me get what I need to hijack the train. Zer0, you'll be taking care of those guys for us," I said, pointing to another bandit camp near us. "That's likely where we'll have to plant the bombs, and it suits our purpose to get them out of the way. And you look like the stealthiest killer of us all. Think you can handle it?"

"It will not be a problem / Many will fall / By my blade," Zer0 said in haiku. I nodded and Maya had her SMG at the ready, already ready to get to work.

"Alright, let's get this done," I said, summoning my Jakobs sniper. Zer0 instantly ran toward the bandit camp and Maya turned to me.

"What's our approach looking like?" she asked me.

"I'll cover you from here. Just wreck shit," I said. Maya smirked and turned toward the bandits.

"That I can do," she said, running toward the bandits. I lowered myself in a sniper's kneel and sniped the first bandit that came in my sights. Shortly after, Maya blasted a second bandit with her SMG and he was incinerated in seconds. Now we had the bandits' attention.

As I sniped another bandit, Maya Phaselocked another before blasting another bandit that came out of one of the huts and blasted the bandit under her Phaselock before she reloaded. Behind her, a psycho ran at her and was about to brain her.

"Your sweet meat puppies will taste nutritious!" the psycho yelled before I sniped him in his brain.

"You aren't tasting shit jackass," I said, before sniping the bandit that came out of the nearest house. I could hear a bunch of confused yells from the other bandit camp, so that meant Zer0 was doing his thing.

We had cleared out all of the bandits out of this camp, and I approached Maya with my sniper on my back.

"Thanks for having my back," she said.

"No problem. Just make sure to watch your back so I don't have to," I told her, before walking toward the blast proof door.

"Come on i-in-i-in! You're missing the fun!" a playful voice told me on the ECHO. Then I noticed the blast door was rising and we could get inside and talk to Tina.

When we walked in, two things caught our attention. The psycho strapped to a bunch of explosives and the thirteen year old girl dancing around him.

"All around the Sta-actus plant, the stalker chased the bandit, the stalker thought twas all in fun, POP!" the girl said, jumping on the detonation switch. "Goes the bandit!"

"Ok... then. Was not expecting a 13 year old," I said, scratching my head in disbelief.

"Join the club," Maya said.

"Oh, hiiiii!" Tina exclaimed. The two of us walked over to Tina and we looked at her with an apprehensive eye.

"You Tina?" Maya asked.

"Yup. Roland told me you were coming. I still owe him for all of that butt-crap with General Rancid, so you need to hijack a train, huh?" Tina asked.

"That's the idea. You wouldn't happen to have any way of hijacking it, do you?" I asked, making her blow a raspberry.

"Chiiilds play! Let introduce you to my _ladies_ ," Tina said, her tone suddenly deep and deliberate.

"Ladies?" I asked with a questioning eyebrow. But Tina seemed to pay my statement no mind and started heading over to her garage.

"Definitely the weirdest job I've ever been on," Maya said.

"Me too," I said.

"Running, running, running, I'm running over here. Run, run, r-run run," Tina said before hitting the button to the garage. She then went over to a shelf and gestured to 2 stuffed dolls.

"This here is Mushy Snugglebites, and this is Felicia Sex-o-pants. These fine ass damsels can hijack that train for ya, but I'm gonna need their Badonkadonks first, and they got stoled by the bandits a few weeks ago. _Go get em!_ Naptime!" Tina exclaimed, falling on her bed. Me and Maya looked at each other before walking out of her bunker.

"Roland, what the hell did I just witness?" I asked him.

 _"I know Tina can be a little... odd. But she's the most gifted demolitions expert on Pandora. Just do what she asks, and I promise she'll help you hijack that train and steal the Vault Key,"_ Roland said. I shut off the call and began heading toward the waypoint Tina sent me.

I continued forward to the waypoint Tina sent me, before I noticed a sight that puzzled me. I could see someone walking on the tracks for the Hyperion trains that ran through out this place. That was suicidal. But that wasn't what really took the cake. He was carrying a psycho's buzz axe, but it was bigger, less bloody, and more vicious looking. But rather than walking around with bandits, he seemed to remain on his own without a care in the world.

"You see him?" Maya asked me, readying her SMG.

"Yeah. But this one seems... different. I can't explain it," I said, looking at him curiously.

"I'M READY FOR A SPINE TINGLER!" he suddenly yelled. But then there was something else that interested me. I could hear a softer voice. Like a thought rather than a voice.

 _"Yeah, great. Hey, remember back when we were sane?"_ the voice said.

"SHE CAN TASTE THE BLOODY HATRED!" the psycho said. But then the voice responded again. It was like I could hear his thoughts. But Sirens couldn't do that. At least, not that I've heard of any cases like that.

 _"Guess not. Still can't hear me, can you? You know, that little voice in your head trying to remind you of the time when we could go hours, days even, without screaming about a desire to ride bicycles made of meat?"_ the voice said, making my eyes widen. _"I don't even remember."_

Ignoring everything as to what I know about psychos, this one seemed to have a sane mind, but an insane body. Which was weird in itself.

"Should we kill him?" Maya asked me. "Jack told me you're the one in charge here, so I'm following you."

"We really don't have time to wait around. But I'll give it a few more seconds before we move on," I said. Then I saw that a Hyperion train was speeding on the tracks behind him. He quickly turned around and evaded out of the way. But when he looked up, he was looking directly at us.

 _"My God. A Siren with a Maliwan SMG and her partner with a Jakobs sniper. The Siren could kill me with her brain and the mercenary could probably shoot me blindfolded. They're Vault Hunters,"_ the psycho deduced, his attention primarily focused on Maya. _"She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."_

"Just what are you thinking?" Maya asked me.

"Approach him slowly. Make sure to keep your guard up. Phaselock him at an instant if he makes a move," I whispered to her with my mouth barely moving. I then began to approach him before swapping to my Tediore SMG.

 _"Tell them you need their help! Tell them to rescue you and care for you. And whatever you do, do NOT scream the word 'poop' at the top of your lungs,"_ the voice said.

"I'M THE CONDUCTOR OF THE POOP TRAIN!" the psycho yelled. I couldn't help but burst out laughing at that. His insane body does exactly what his sane mind tells him _not_ to do. Maya looked at me strangely and then I moved to explain.

"For some reason, I can hear what this psycho is thinking," I told her.

"You serious?" Maya asked.

"Not really a good time to be joking. But yes. I'm serious," I said.

"That must be rough," Maya said, making me shake my head.

"No. Weirdly enough, his mind is sane. In fact, it's pretty damn logical. This is probably the only one that's like that though," I said, before calling out to the psycho. "Come here!"

 _"What?"_ his sane mind said.

"You heard me. Come here!" I yelled at him. Rather than going into a psycho charge, he walked towards me slowly.

 _"Take this slow and stay calm. You can keep screaming about poop and meat, but don't attack them. We've got one shot at this,"_ his sane voice said. The psycho approached me and we simply eyed each other. Maya had her SMG aimed at the psycho, but I was more relaxed.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"MY IDENTITY IS THE RAILROAD TRACKS OF DEATH, WAR, AND MEAT!" the insane side said.

 _"Ugh. Why couldn't you have just said Krieg?"_ the sane side said.

"Krieg. Huh. That's German for 'war' if you didn't know that," I said.

"This hurts my brain," the insane side said.

 _"Yes, I know what that stands for. That is if you can hear me,"_ the sane side said.

"I can hear you. This is an awkward way to communicate," I said, making Krieg stop and turn his head at me curiously.

 _"If you can really hear me, tell your Siren friend to introduce herself,"_ the sane side said.

"He wants you to introduce yourself," I told her.

"Maya," she said evenly.

 _"Well then... it seems for once someone can understand me. What are you two Vault Hunters doing?"_ he asked me.

"Doing work for Hyperion," I told them.

 _"Hyperion? The company Hyperion? You know, they kidnapped a bunch of inhabitants of this planet,"_ he told me.

"Yeah, a lot of them were bandits. Then again, on this planet, pretty much everyone has a track record of some sort. Even the kids it seems," I said, remembering Tina blowing up that psycho.

 _"I was-"_ his sane voice started, but his psycho voice spoke up.

"No, stop it! Keep the memories down with a knife in its throat," it growled. I raised an eyebrow. Was he involved with Hyperion? As much as I wanted to get to know this psycho more, we had a mission, and cause this guy had a direct link to Hyperion, he couldn't know of our mission. I was into doing my job first and making friends later.

"Ok, right now we have to finish this mission, and it's confidential among most Hyperion members. If you're still in this area, I may see Jack about your... condition and see if we can get you involved in some type of way," I told him. Krieg nodded. He seemed satisfied with that. Then we continued toward the waypoint.

"You starting to get cozy with the bandits?" Maya asked. I frowned at her insinuation.

"I refuse to associate with the enemy. Though this psycho seems... different," I said.

"If you say so. Just try not to make a decision that gets us killed," Maya said. I nodded and we reached the area where Tina mentioned her 'Badonkadonks.' If that wasn't a strange name, I didn't know what was.

 _"That's right bitches - My big brudder's about to teach you some MANNERS. Nobody steals Mushy Snugglebites' Badonkadonk and lives!"_ Tina yelled. I shook my head. God, today was a day for lunatics today.

"WHO THE HELL IS MUSHY SNUGGLEBITES?!" a nomad yelled before Maya put some fire bullets in his brain and dropped him. I shot at the bandits standing up on vantage points with my Tediore SMG and killed three of them before they started hiding behind the rails. I tossed my gun at them, bouncing it off the wall before blowing up the bandit I was aiming for. Then my gun digi-structed back to my hand. And would you believe these guns are cheap? Amazing.

After we finished wiping out all of the bandits in this camp, I grabbed the 'Badonkadonks' that Tina mentioned. They were basically rockets with enough power to level city blocks.

"Ok, I got the 'Badonkadonks.' What now?" I asked.

"Got the Badonkadonks? Best day evaaaaa. Bring 'em back and I'll use 'em to make some fine ass damsels who can hijack that train for yas," Tina said. I nodded and gestured for Maya to follow me. She nodded and followed me up the stairs before we jumped off the bandits' platform.

Zer0 was already waiting for us when we got back from the train station and followed us when we came back.

"What kept you?" he asked us.

"Trying to find these rockets and an entire camp worth of bandits. Including buzzards. Forgive us we got caught up," I told him dryly. The three of us walked back into Tina's workshop. I summoned the rockets from my ECHO as I was walking up to Tina.

"Got em," I said.

"Awesome! Just a secco! This gon' be good," Tina said, grabbing the missiles from my hands and hurrying in her workshop before closing the garage door. "I'm a little teapot bloody and cut. Here is my handle, here is my butt." Soon after she said that, there was a small explosion.

"The hell?" I questioned. I looked at Maya and Zer0. Both of them shrugged.

"Uh, whoops," Tina said, brushing the explosion off as something minor. "Put a little bomb in the hot ass damsel. Blow stuff up and make people die. Squishy. Squishy, squishy, squishy." Then after a few moments of silence, Tina spoke up again.

"Oh, dammmn you looking good ladies. Let's get to work," she said, opening the garage. She had fused the two rockets to her stuffed animals, but I could see that the payload of the rockets had been dropped to make room for the lock-on targeting. Genius. Most bomb makers don't even know how to do something like that.

"That's right. Twin sisters man. Ohhhh... Take 'em. Take 'em, take 'em, take 'em, take 'em," Tina said rapidly.

"Ok, ok. Calm down," I said, grabbing both of the rockets and storing them in my ECHO.

"Just put my damsels near the choo-choo train and _set em off!_ Good plan, great plan!" Tina exclaimed. The three of us then walked out of the bunker and headed toward the area where I assumed we had to place the bombs. And I was correct in that assumption.

We climbed up to the top of a building, and saw that there were two pikes to place the bombs on. I'm guessing they would launch up and hit the train once it was about to pass.

"Boosh! Just poke their bellies when you need me to set the 'splosives off. I got to do it remotely," Tina said.

I raised an eyebrow before poking their bellies, hearing a confirming double beep. Now there was nothing to do but wait. I decided to contact Wilhelm on information about the train.

"Wilhelm, what is the approximate time that the train will arrive?" I asked.

 _"Estimated arrival is now three minutes. We made the train move slower than usual to make sure you had everything set up prior. The bombs are in position, correct?"_ Wilhelm asked.

"Yes," I told him. They even knew the Raiders had planned to rob the train with bombs.

 _"Excellent. Everything is going according to plan,"_ Wilhelm said. _"But when the time comes, do not hesitate."_

"I don't need to hesitate against these bandits," I said.

 _"That is not what I meant,"_ Wilhelm said before cutting off the call. I frowned. I had a feeling I didn't like what he meant by that.

"Are we on schedule?" Maya asked.

"Yeah, we are fine. Just got to wait a few minutes," I told her. I drew my Dahl pistol and began twirling it in my finger to idly pass the time. Zer0 simply watched the train with his arms crossed while Maya sat in a meditative position. Then shortly after, we all heard the train's horn blare loudly.

"There it is," I said, rising to my feet.

" _Oh snaps son! I hear the train coming!" Tina exclaimed. "Counting down! 10... 9..."_ Then the rockets had taken off before she had finished counting.

 _"I got bored,"_ Tina added. "Ahahaha! Burn all the babies!" Tina yelled as the train fell down the ice shelf.

 _"Well, that's one way to hijack a train. The Vault Key's still on that ice shelf. Better climb that wreckage to get there,"_ Roland said. I gestured for Zer0 and Maya to follow me so we could get up to the ice shelf.

 _"Climb the pipe to the train, or you'll go insane. Wut, wut,"_ Tina rapped. _"That's a rap song I wrote."_ I had to admit, it was catchy.

We climbed up to the shelf and there were a number of loaders that survived the explosion, but they paid us no mind as we continued toward the Vault Key, supposedly.

 _"Search the train cars. They're probably keeping the Vault Key in the most fortified one,"_ Roland told me. That's probably exactly where Jack wanted us to go, so that's where we heading.

"Just what are we looking for?" Maya asked me. "And why are we stealing what he could've just given us?"

"I have no idea. Jack? What are we looking for?" I asked him over the ECHO.

 _"A power core. You'll just have to kill one of our men to get it. We have to make it look convincing,"_ he told me.

"Someone survived? It wouldn't seem like someone would've survived that crash," I said.

 _"You'll see who he is. But don't worry. This isn't necessarily a bad thing,"_ Jack told me. I shut off the call and turned back to Maya.

"He said we're looking for a power core, but he said we have to kill one of his men to get it," I explained to her, making her frown.

"Just how many of his men is he willing to sacrifice?" Maya asked.

"I think all of them if it means bringing peace to this planet. But I don't think he's beneath sacrificing himself to do it as well. He also mentioned that this wouldn't be a bad thing. Which means either this guy is a traitor or maybe he just doesn't want to live any more," I explained. "Either way, let's get this done."

We finally made it to the end of the path, and we saw that there was a giant train car at the end. When we approached it, it started lifting on it's own.

"Uh..." I trailed before the train car was thrown. And Wilhelm was the one who thrown it. My eyes widened. Wilhelm was the guy we had to kill.

 _"It's a trap! The Vault Key's not on that train! I'm sorry, but you can't handle Wilhelm, trust me!"_ Roland exclaimed.

 _"Excuse_ me?" I emphasized, sounding offended at that statement. I was confident in my skills, which was probably enough to take down Wilhelm. But I would not underestimate him. Then I had a Siren on my side AND a professional assassin. No matter how strong Roland think he is, he wouldn't stand a chance against this group.

"I will die with honor," Wilhelm said, digi-structing surveyors before firing missiles at us. The three of us evaded out of the way before I drew my Jakobs sniper.

 _"Kid, Wilhelm nearly killed us all in New Haven without taking a scratch. If things get bad, just run!"_ Lilith warned.

"Oh, just fuck off," I snapped before sniping Wilhelm in his head, the shot barely making him jerk his head to the side.

Maya attempted to Phaselock Wilhelm, he somehow seemed to be resistant to it or too big to be locked, but he did groan in pain from the force of it.

Zer0 moved fast and he slashed at Wilhelm's left leg with precision. Somehow, the blade wasn't strong enough to sever it, but he did cut part way through.

I drew my Poly-Kryten blade and ran toward Wilhelm as fast as I could. He attempted to stomp me back, but I jumped before he could do it and landed on his back. I jammed my blade in between where his rocket/grenade launcher was welded into his back and pushed as hard as I could until the thing fell to the ground with a loud clank.

"I told you not hesitate. Glad you listened," Wilhelm said when I removed his launcher. He knew this was going to happen and he was fine with it. Then I remembered what he said about dying with honor. Did he have a disease or something?

Maya had switched to a shock SMG and was firing at Wilhelm, her shots hardly doing anything to his armor. Zer0 had his Hyperion sniper out and kept shooting Wilhelm to whittle down his shield that the surveyors were supplying him with.

While Zer0 and Maya distracted Wilhelm, I jammed my blade into his left leg where Zer0 tried to sever it and pushed it deeper while twisting it to try and tried to take out his leg. It quickly snapped off, and Wilhelm was reduced to only half of his left leg. I jumped as high as I could and cut off his left arm, which was far easier to sever than his leg.

"Finish him!" Maya exclaimed, still shooting at Wilhelm. I summoned a Phasebomb to my hand before quickly moving in front of him and stuffing my hand in his sternum where Zer0 shot a hole through it and it was powerful enough to blow up his entire torso to little sticky and metal pieces.

"Hot damn! That was a rush!" I exclaimed, taking the power core off Wilhelm's corpse.

 _"You killed Wilhelm? Holy hell. Jack doesn't stand a chance,"_ Roland said.

 _"I think you're the one who doesn't stand a chance,"_ I thought, but I kept that to myself.

"Never underestimate me and my partners," I told him before contacting Jack. "I'm guessing we give this core to Sanctuary."

 _"You're very perceptive. Yes, you do. But make sure to get away from Sanctuary as soon as you do,"_ Jack told me.

"I'll make sure to do that," I said.

 _"And if you're upset about Wilhelm... listen. His cybernetics were shortening his life span. He would've died in weeks at the most. He wanted to die in combat, not by some sickness. I liked him too, so it wasn't an easy choice,"_ Jack explained.

"It's alright. We'll get this job done. This won't have been for nothing. Sanctuary falls today," I told him.

 _"I'll be glad to watch that city burn. You'll all be heavily rewarded once you do too,"_ Jack promised me. Nothing more needed to be said as the three of us used the Fast Travel in this area to head back to Sanctuary.

"Look, we have a few jobs to take care of. So I'll head out as soon as I get this core installed," I told Lilith.

"Are you sure you don't want to stick around? You've earned a rest," Lilith said.

"No. I'm not feeling the element around here. I could use some new guns and some cash," I said, being half truthful. I really wanted some loot, and I haven't seen any yet.

"Suit yourself. Give it to Lt. Davis near the front of the city and he'll take care of it," Lilith said. I nodded before turning to my two partners and they nodded as well.

We walked up to the front of the city and we saw the Crimson Raider standing next to a machine. I already had the core in my hand when I walked up to him.

"I got something for ya," I said, handing him the core.

"Whoa! That power core looks like it could keep our shields up for months! Years, even!" Davis exclaimed.

"Glad you're happy. Now if you don't mind, we got a few more jobs to take care of. Lock the gate behind us when we go out," I told him.

"Sure enough. Thanks for your help," Davis told me.

"No problem," I said before turning to Maya and Zer0. "Let's get our job done."

"Absolutely," Maya said, following me out. As soon as we were out of the city limits, Zer0 spoke up.

"You know / I truly want to stay / To watch the fireworks," he said. I smirked.

"You can stay if you want to. But I want to head back to Friendship Gulag and get some rest," I told him.

"Me too. I'm satisfied with just hearing about it," Maya said.

"You know where it is, right?" I asked. Zer0 nodded. I then turned and walked to the Catch-A-Ride station nearby. Maya packed in the same car that I did while Zer0 stood back and watched. Whatever Jack planned with that core, I hope it worked. But we had gone our part. The war may not yet be over, but I was still willing to fight.

* * *

A/N: Finally finished this chapter. Of course, we all know what happens beyond this point. But what the future may hold we don't know. But I do. :) I also wanted to get Maya and Zer0 in here, cause I just couldn't resist. Hope you all enjoyed this.


	6. Chapter 6 - The Deception Falls

I walked into the Friendship Gulag and I was immediately greeted by Handsome Jack. Like, actually him. Not a message or anything.

"Good work kiddos. Mostly you. You did most of the work," he said, gesturing towards me. I smiled.

"Thanks. So now that we're done with that, you have any more jobs for me?" I asked.

"Yeah. Finding where the Raiders teleported to," Jack said, making me look at him strangely.

"Come again?" I asked.

"We installed your fake core. Whatever it was supposed to do worked, right?" Maya asked.

"Oh, it worked. But Lilith, that damned Siren that you met had enough Eridium to teleport the entire city away. We don't know where they ended up, and it's your job to find them. I'm getting someone to find out where they are, but right now, your job is to kill any and all of Roland's supporters that were not on Sanctuary," Jack told us. I remembered that Ellie here in the Dust was one of their supporters, but I didn't know anyone other than that.

Jack then took out two big stacks of money and held them out towards me and Maya. My eyes widened slightly at the amount.

"Your money for the cause so far. Ten million for you cause you've done most of the work, and a hundred grand for you. There's more to come if you keep working. The other hundred G's are for the ninja guy. Give it to him whenever you find him," he told us. I smiled and grabbed my portion of the money. Maya even smiled as she accepted her considerably smaller cut. Either way, one hundred grand was still a lot of money to use. Then Jack turned towards me again and handed me a beautiful looking red and black Hyperion shotgun. Now my eyes widened to the size of saucers at the sight of that gun.

"Dayum," I said as I admired the look of the shotgun. Jack grinned as he saw my reaction to sight of the gun.

"A sexy little thing, ain't she? It's a gift from me to you cupcake. The Conference Call. One of the best shotguns Hyperion has ever made. Enjoy it kiddo," he said, looking at the shotgun fondly. "It's been gathering dust for a while. I think it's about time it started blowing off some heads." I had a wide grin on my face as I accepted the very luxurious shotgun and put it in my ECHO.

"Thanks. So... do we have a list of Roland's supporters? Cause I only know of Ellie from the Dust," I said.

"Well, I know of a few more than that," Jack said, handing me and Maya an ECHO. "Now, the mechanic's head is only worth one grand. The most you'll have to worry about is the bullet or bullets you'll have to replace. But you two will have to track down and kill Mordecai, that spy that works for the Raiders you met before. Capture his bird if you can. I've got some experiments that I would like to conduct on it," Jack told me. "Mordecai's head is worth a million for the both of you, dead or alive. Twenty million for the bird if you bring it back alive, ten million if you kill it."

"I'll make note of that. We'll get this done," I assured him. Jack nodded in satisfaction.

"I set up a battalion of loaders and soldiers for you to use. They're on standby if you want to call then in at any time. When you go after Brick, or the Slab King as his other alias, you might wanna not get too close. Guy's a pain sponge and hits hard enough to dent Poly-Kryten," Jack said, making my eyes widen. Poly-Kryten was one of the strongest metals out there and he can dent it by punching? What did this bandit lift? Cars? Trucks? Spaceships?

"Well... damn. I'll make note of that," I said.

"You definitely oughta. Enjoy the shotgun, and get this done. Hopefully we will have little to no interference when we go to awake The Warrior. But I'd take that assassin you're hanging with just in case. Things could get heavy," Jack suggested.

"Alright, but how am I supposed to summon that battalion you mentioned to help us?" I asked.

"Oh. Right. Here," Jack said, handing me a stopwatch that was similar to the stopwatch on his jacket. "This was Wilhelm's old stopwatch. He commanded all of the men, and so do you now. I've been impressed with your performance thus far, cupcake. Don't let me down now."

I nodded before giving Jack a two fingered salute and walking further inside.

"You're the one in charge. What are we doing?" Maya asked.

"I need to rest first. I've been working all day. Meanwhile, you can kill Ellie if you feel up for it. It's really just a quick drive over to her garage down there and putting a bullet in her brain. Easy thousand for you," I said yawning.

"So you're just going to sit here with your feet kicked up?" Maya asked, sounding somewhat angry.

"Tell me, have you been spending almost half a Pandoran day doing jobs for bandits while try not to raise suspicion?" I questioned. "No. So you're not worn out like I am. We will attack the Slab King when I've rested, because I'm not going out there only to die. So stop giving me shit." I rubbed my eyes and spoke in an irritated tone cause now that the adrenaline from the previous jobs had worn off, I was bone tired. And Maya's bitching was not doing me any favors.

"Oh. I didn't know you worked _that_ long. Sorry about that," Maya said in an apologetic voice.

"Just don't undermine my devotion to this cause. Cause I am _very_ determined to bring order to this planet. Hell, I'm impressed with Hyperion for even attempting this. A lot of corporations are sitting on their asses and letting it happen when they could easily jump in. When you change from an accusing jackass to a pleasant person to be around, come and find me," I said walking off. Man, the very thought of being accused of slacking off on this situation irritated me to no end.

I yawned again while rubbing my eyes. God, I felt like crap now that I wasn't working. Luckily I haven't been shot very much, so I didn't have any wounds to treat before lying down. I just hoped the bed was comfortable.

I was thinking to myself where I was going to rest when I ran into a Hyperion officer and he stopped to talk to me.

"Hey, I heard you replaced Wilhelm as our general. If you need anything, we have your back," the man said. I nodded gratefully.

"I appreciate it. But mind telling me where I'm sleeping?" I asked. The Hyperion soldier pointed to a building in the distance.

"Right over there. There are beds for you and your Vault Hunter pals. Just go there when you need rest," the soldier told me.

"Thanks. And when Zer0 and Maya come here looking for me, tell them that I will find them when I am ready to make for the Slab King's town," I said.

"You're going after the Slab King? He killed a lot of our men when he broke out of one of our prisons. And he's still killing off a lot of them. If you kill that bastard, please bring his corpse here so we can have ourselves a party," the Hyperion officer said with resolve. I nodded while having a twisted smile on my face.

"It'll probably be heavy, but I'll be happy to oblige you that much. But mind getting a Fast Travel in here? I'm tired of having to drive all the way here," I said.

"I'll talk to Mr. Jack about a delivery, sir. Don't bother yourself for the moment," the soldier said, immediately walking off. I smiled. Who knew having people to take orders from you would be so fun?

I walked into the building the soldier and saw that there were three beds and bathrooms. This place had plenty of space.

I also noticed that Jack marked our respective closets 'loot closets.' There were even health, ammo, and gun vendors in there. I smirked. He knew that we cared about ammo and loot more than new clothes. He was right.

I laid down on the bed furthest down the room and threw myself on it before feeling the mattress sink on my weight, but it felt like it was molding into my body to try and provide maximum comfort to my body rather than smothering me.

 _"Man, working for Handsome Jack is fun, profitable, and luxurious,"_ I thought to myself before falling asleep.

* * *

When I woke up, the mattress still felt comfortable as fuck on my body. It actually felt I was lying on clouds. It didn't feel like an exaggeration to me. That's how good it felt.

But enough of the pleasantries. As soon as I ate, I was going to assemble Maya and Zer0 so I could get ready to head to this mission to go after the Slab King.

I walked out of my quarters and walked to find the mess hall. Other than the command center, the mess hall was the biggest building in this place. And I liked that shit. That meant they had plenty of food. And knowing Handsome Jack, the best food that's on this planet. Which probably isn't saying much, but I doubt it was going to be dirt.

I walked up to the counter, got a few skag steaks and some wine, and then sat down to enjoy my food. After a few minutes of eating, I got a ECHO call, which I immediately answered.

 _"I heard from one of the soldiers that you're up now. You ready to go?"_ Maya asked.

"Almost. Just lemme finish eating, which shouldn't even take five minutes," I told her.

 _"Alright. We'll be waiting near the entrance. Jack installed a Fast Travel here thanks to you, so that saves us some time,"_ Maya said. I smiled.

"Glad to see I have some influence. I'll meet you once I'm finished," I said, cutting off the call only to be immediately cut off from a bite of my food by another call. "Oh, what now?"

"Who is this?" I asked, answering the call.

 _"I found out how Sanctuary got sabotaged,"_ someone said on the other line. I heard it was Lilith. I decided to feign ignorance. She might not have been onto me. Hopefully.

"How?" I asked.

 _"That bitch Angel,"_ Lilith growled. Now this I was generally curious to hear.

"Wait, Angel? Who's Angel?" I asked.

 _"Some AI that helped us before, but she really worked for Jack. Above all, she tried to pin the entire thing on you! Can you even believe that?"_ Lilith exclaimed. I frowned. Whoever this Angel was, she sounded like she tried to reach out to the Raiders and blow my cover as a double spy. This was likely a treasonous act. Or this could be the person Jack mentioned who he said to find where the Raiders were. Which she did. Maybe this was part of his plan. I had to find out.

"So she works for Jack?" I asked.

 _"Yes."_

"And she tried to reach out to you?"

 _"Again, yes."_

"Just what did she tell you?"

 _"How to get to her Control Core to steal the Vault Key."_ My eyes widened and I immediately rose to my feet. Ok, that _definitely_ wouldn't be part of Jack's plan. That, above all, guarantees all of the protection that Jack can give it. My instincts were right. This Angel _was_ a problem.

"I think we should give this a chance," I said.

 _"Not you too!"_ she exclaimed.

"Listen, we've got no plan, no strategy or anything. I don't think we're in a position to refuse the only help that presents itself. While she may not be able to fess up to her own fuck ups, we need this and you know it," I told her.

 _"Ugh. God, you're infuriatingly right about this situation. Fine. Well, Roland needs you to head to the Hyperion Wildlife Exploitation Preserve and find Mordecai. We need something from Bloodwing that'll get us into Control Core Angel. If we can't get it, then I'll be on the front lines with you,"_ Lilith said.

"Got it. I'll head there now," I said, cutting off the call before tearing a giant piece of steak off in my frustration. "God, this is a bunch of fuck shit!" I then stormed out of the mess hall before contacting Jack.

 _"I didn't expect for you to call so soon kiddo. Problems?"_ he asked.

"Plenty. Is there someone named Angel who serves you?" I asked.

 _"How do you know about my daughter?"_ Jack asked. My eyes widened.

"She's your daughter?" I asked in a surprised tone.

 _"Yes, and not many people who are still alive know about her. How the hell did you find out about that? And I want an answer now cupcake,"_ Jack said with a threatening undertone.

"Lilith just contacted me. I'm guessing Sanctuary finally reappeared, and now she knows how to get into Angel's Control Core," I told him.

" _Play your ECHO message with her,"_ Jack told me. I gladly obliged and went back to my archived conversations and played it.

 _"Who is this?"_

"I found out how Sanctuary got sabotaged."

 _"How?"_

"That bitch Angel."

 _"Wait, Angel? Who's Angel?"_

"Some AI that helped us before, but she really worked for Jack. Above all, she tried to pin the entire thing on you! Can you even believe that?"

 _"Somewhat. So she works for Jack?"_

"Yes."

 _"And she tried to reach out to you?"_

"Again, yes."

 _"Just what did she tell you?"_

"How to get to her Control Core to steal the Vault Key."

 _"I think we should give this a chance."_

"Not you too!"

 _"Listen, we've got no plan, no strategy or anything. I don't think we're in a position to refuse the only help that presents itself. While she may not be able to fess up to her own fuck ups, we need this and you know it._

"Ugh. God, you're infuriating. Fine. Well, Roland needs you to head to the Hyperion Wildlife Preserve and find Mordecai. We need something from Bloodwing that'll get us into Control Angel. If we can't get it, then I'll be on the front lines with you."

 _"Got it. I'll head there now."_

The message finished and Jack was silent after it stopped. I didn't know how he was reacting to this information.

"What should we do about Angel?"

 _"I- I know she's just deceiving them. Like father, like daughter,"_ Jack said, speaking in a prideful way, but I saw through that.

"That doesn't sound like deception," I said.

 _"Yeah, well we heard it from a filthy bandit!"_ Jack yelled, his voice sounding kind of manic. _"You can't take their word for it. They'll say anything to fake us out."_

"It sounds like you're faking yourself out here. Look, if Angel continues what she's doing, she will ruin everything you are trying to do for this planet. Order. Peace. Civilization. No more bandits or dangerous creatures. Do you want to give up those efforts now?" I asked him.

 _"She's just deceiving them. I know she is,"_ Jack said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself. I shook my head.

"Look. If you want to give your whole campaign up cause of this one mistake, that's on you. But you don't have to kill her. Just control her and we'll take care of the rest. Pandora will be free of bandits and dangerous creatures. And Hyperion will make it a peaceful planet. A planet worth living on," I said, doing my best to convince him. "I'll try and run interference on this equipment that they mentioned. In the meantime, you need to handle your daughter." I then ended the call and walked to the front of the building where Zer0 and Maya were waiting for me.

"About time," Maya said as I walked up.

"We're not going after the Slab King," I told them.

"What happened?" Maya asked.

"Sanctuary happened. We have to play double agent again. As soon as we get the chip, we'll destroy it rather than give it to the Raiders. We'll try and set up a plan that we can use to trap the leaders from there. Got it?" I asked them.

"Got it," Maya said. Zer0 simply nodded.

"Let's go then," I said before my ears caught a strange buzzing. I turned to where I heard it come from and I saw a small, almost unnoticeable device on the side of the wall. My eyes widened. This was a bugging device. And I knew for a fact it was not Hyperion made, but it was definitely powerful.

"Fuck," I said, punching the device and shattering it to bits.

"What?" Maya asked.

"The Raiders set up a listening device at this camp to hear about any plans that Hyperion has in store. There's no more hiding as double agents now," I said, before smiling. "Which means, I don't have to smile in their face when I meet them. I can just shoot them."

"How did no one even notice that damn thing? Soldiers leave the gates quite often," Maya said.

"Maybe some of them are deaf. Either way, we're still going after that item we need. Let's move it," I said, walking to the Fast Travel and teleporting us to Ellie's garage for a car. We each got our own respective vehicles and drove toward the Preserve.

* * *

A/N: Now this is where the spins are starting to take hold. No more double agent action. It's full on conflict now. Just the way that I like it. And the final battle will be epic if I have anything to say about it. I'll guarantee you this. One side will reign supreme. Will it be Hyperion or the Crimson Raiders?


	7. Chapter 7 - Wildlife Setback

It took us a while to make it to the Preserve. The wildlife in the Highlands was pretty irritating to say the least. Threshers tossed spikes us and stalkers kept throwing the ends of their tails at us, some of them explosive. Regardless, nothing was going to stop us from making it to the Preserve.

"We made it to the Preserve," I told Jack once was we were near the entrance to the Preserve. It was safe to say that this was the Preserve. The scenery was a little different a little more advanced.

"Good on ya. Now, Mordecai has already gotten in and started killing a bunch of my men and loaders to get to his little pet bird. If you don't mind, kill that drunk has been," Jack said.

"It's gonna get done. That is if he doesn't grab his bird and get out before we get there," I told him.

"Oh, trust me. You don't have to worry about that. I've got something that'll hold him there. I'll see if it'll save a little piece of him for you three," Jack said. Whatever Jack planned, it sounded reassuring that he wasn't going to escape. But I just hoped whatever he had would save a little of that sniper to kill. I've been wanting to start slaughtering the Raiders' ranks ever since I met them. This was the first step in that.

We continued to the Preserve while a number of stalkers were in our way as we progressed. Zer0's Decepti0n device wasn't really any good with these things because could stalkers could see people even through invisibility. To be honest, it really wouldn't make sense if they couldn't. They have to see their own kind in some type of way. But regardless of his Decepti0n being of no use, Zer0 was more than capable of handling these things. (I know Decepti0n works in the game, but this is my own little feature involving the stalkers. To be honest, I would love it if Stalkers could see through Zer0's Decepti0n and still see you. But they still wouldn't know what to attack sometimes. That would be an awesome mechanic. But I'm kind of glad they didn't cause I am a Zer0 player)

Maya Phaselocked one of the stalkers, and I blasted it in the head with my Conference Call. The pellets shot from three different directions while converging on the one spot that I aimed at. In this case, the stalker's head. This shotgun was fucking awesome.

When we actually got near the facility, we saw a bunch of corpses of Engineers and Loaders lying on the ground. The sight filled me with anger, but I quelled my anger and focused on the task at hand.

"He's definitely done work here. We need to keep going," I said, keeping my Conference Call at the ready. "Keep your eyes open."

Both of my partners gave me a nod and we continued forward. We saw that just about all everything that we likely would've had to fight on the way here if it wasn't for Mordecai. Skags, more stalkers, even Rakk. Obviously there was more skill to this drunk sniper than I thought. So I made it a crucial note not to underestimate him. That would be a mistake.

 _"You asshole!"_ I suddenly heard a voice exclaim on my ECHO. I smirked. I knew that voice anywhere. This would be fun.

"How are you doing today Lilith?" I said in a pleasant tone while my face was lined with a smirk.

 _"You've been working with Jack the entire time? I'm going to burn the flesh on your bones until they're black!"_ Lilith roared. While a threat from a Siren should be taken seriously, I was not going to until she actually did something that made me take her seriously. In the little time that I was on the side of the Crimson Raiders, I was pretty much doing all the work. They just sat there with their thumbs up their asses while on Sanctuary. No wonder they were losing.

"Oh, really? Then I dare you to bring your ass down here and have us fight it out. Trust me, I need a challenge. But no matter the effort you put up, I will skin you alive and take your head and give it to Jack. Believe me, I'll have fun doing it. I daresay your screams would be more delicious to hear than the taste of a ripe Stalker Melon," I said, smacking my lips before laughing maliciously.

 _"Oh, fuck you,"_ Lilith snapped before ending off the call. I grinned to myself as I turned to Maya, whose face was questioning.

"So you're a sadist?" she asked me. I pretended to ponder the question before I answered.

"Yes. Yes, I suppose I am. Granted, I don't gain sexual elation from it. That's disgusting. But I do enjoy inflicting pain on my enemies. You can say I find it... fun. Fun and exciting. To watch them scream and feel pain like they inflicted on others. Karma's a bitch, and I am that karma," I told her.

"I suppose I see your point. Is it sort of like the satisfaction I get every time I kill someone?" Maya asked.

"Mmm, I'd say the feeling I get differs from that. It's not really satisfaction. Like it said, it's fun. Makes my heart beat really fast and I smile. I smile a smile so genuine, that to my enemies, it's quite horrifying when they're bleeding, broken, burned, or whatever I've done to them. Of course, I just do this to the people who really deserve my attention. Most of the time, I give them a quick bullet to the head," I explained to her.

"I've hardly ever had genuine fun, but I've had enough to get what you mean," Maya said.

"The feeling of a swift kill / Nothing can compare / Beautiful and disgusting," Zer0 suddenly said. I smiled at the masked ninja.

"He gets it. He definitely gets it. You know, normally I like working alone, but having people who can understand my sick ideas of fun is rather refreshing," I said.

"I could say the same about you," Maya said. Zer0 simply nodded. I smiled. We walked with a casual air. Like were weren't about to go murder someone. But the Conference Call on my shoulder, Zer0's sniper, and Maya's SMG definitely suggested we had an idea for murder. And we were just the team for it. I feel like we should come up with a name. I want us to be the most feared group on Pandora after we were done with the Raiders. I wanted bandits to be afraid at the very mention of Hyperion because of us. I wanted the universe to praise Hyperion as the ones who had brought order to the lawless planet cause of us. The Raiders were the only thing that could possibly stop us, but we wouldn't let them. Not easily anyway.

We reached the end of the facility, and we noticed a lot of the surrounding area was wrecked. Eridium samples broken and spilled all over the ground. Bullet markings, scorch marks, robot parts. Just about all of it was scattered all over this place. By the looks of things, it had gotten messy in here. But I could also see a trail of blood. Blood that I could tell did not belong to a Hyperion officer. I smiled. So he did get injured at one point. That was excellent news to hear.

"This suggests he's injured," I said, pointing at the blood trail for my partners to notice.

"You think the blood loss is settling in?" Maya asked me.

"I don't think he lost enough blood to get lightheaded or anything like that, but I do think that his wound will considerably hinder him when we fight him. He should be far less of a challenge than normal. Plus he's tired himself out from fighting these loaders. I don't think there's any escape for him," I explained to the others. Maya smiled and Zer0's mask made a smiley face emoticon. A twisted smile was also brought to my face. This should be easy. 'Should' being the definite word.

We took the elevator down to the Observation Deck and we saw that Mordecai was locked in combat with... a giant bird? Was this what Jack did with Bloodwing? Turned her into a giant elemental creature? Whatever he did, it was amazing work. And it would suit our purposes very well.

Mordecai turned around as soon as he heard the elevator activate, and we all had smiles on our faces as we walked up to him. I had a particularly malicious smile on my face as I lead the group.

"I'm afraid your not so little bird is going to be leaving this place. She belongs to Hyperion now," I said, stopping in my tracks. Then I held up two fingers for Zer0 and Maya not to shoot yet. I wanted to play with him for a bit. It felt good to be in charge.

"Screw you, you traitorous Hyperion skaglick. I'm getting her out of here," Mordecai snarled at me. I raised my hands sarcastically.

"Watch out, we got a badass over here," I said, sarcasm dripping from every word.

"More than you know. Cause I'm going to get her out of here," Mordecai repeated.

"Oh? And how do you propose to do that? As you can see..." I trailed as Bloodwing landed next to Mordecai and screeched loudly. "...she seems awfully pissed at you. What's the matter? Didn't give her enough people to eat?"

"Blood... you know it's me," Mordecai said as he lowered his sniper when looking at the bird. "It's Mordecai. Your friend. Come on girl. Snap out of it!" Bloodwing simply stared, and it was the stare of a predator. I laughed again.

"Oh, that's adorable. You care more about the life of your bird than the lives of good Hyperion men. You bandits never cease to amuse me," I said with a smile.

"'Good Hyperion men?' Ha! If they were good men, then Blood's not a bird!" Mordecai exclaimed.

"Just because they don't tolerate the chaos you bandits feed off of doesn't make your claims about them are true. They seek to bring peace to the chaotic planet known as Pandora. Stop living the in the barbarian times and open your eyes Mordecai. We are peace. We are order. We are the future. How would you feel if you only had to raise your gun occasionally rather than every day? How would you feel if you didn't have to kill to make a living? Hyperion can bring that life here if you don't stand in our way. I'm offering you a chance. A chance that Jack won't give you, but I'm willing to. So will you be unwise and deny my request? Or will you come to your senses and give this planet a future? You've got about thirty seconds before I tell your bird to start ripping you open," I explained to Mordecai.

For the first time since I've seen Mordecai, conflict truly raged on his face. I had to hold back a smile. He was really thinking about my words. He may not agree in the end, but I've planted the idea in his head. That's a bit of a success.

"I'll never join Hyperion. You'll probably just execute me once I surrendered," Mordecai said with vigor. I sighed and shook my head.

"Your choice. Bloodwing, he's yours," I said, raising two fingers and gestured to Mordecai. But the bird did not move. I raised an eyebrow. Then it screeched before lunging itself at me. I blasted it in the head with my shotgun on demand, which stunned it and threw it off course with the blast. But I noticed that the chip on its collar was gone. I quickly turned to Mordecai, who smiled at me before running out of the door on the far side.

"Zer0! Catch him! He must not be allowed to take that chip back to Sanctuary!" I exclaimed as I focused on the electric elemental Bloodwing. Zer0 nodded and ran off at a fast speed before Bloodwing took to the skies.

"Jack! Your little pet project has turned on us. Anything you can do?" I asked him. I could hear him sigh.

 _"I had a feeling this would happen. I have an explosive device fused with the mind control chip implanted in the bird's brain. But you might wanna gain some distance before you get blown to little sticky pieces,"_ he told me.

"Activate it. We'll get clear in time," I told him.

 _"Sure thing kiddo. Man, all my hard work on this dumb bird wasted! Guess every success has its flaws,"_ Jack said before I could hear the chip start beep. It was going to explode within seconds.

"Maya! Come on!" I yelled at her. She stopped shooting at Bloodwing and nodded before running towards the door I was at. I immediately sealed it once Maya was in, and it blocked Bloodwing from diving inside. Barely two seconds passed before I could hear the explosion from outside the door. I opened it and saw that Bloodwing's corpse was completely headless. Yup. It worked good.

"Well, that did not go as planned. Perhaps I should've just shot him instead of talking," I said idly.

"You think?" Maya said rhetorically. I smiled.

"Yeah, I fucked up. Hopefully Mordecai didn't get far. Zer0 should be able to catch him. It's a long way back to the Fast Travel," I said, before noticing the loot chests. "Well, most of the personnel here are dead. I get a chest, you get a chest?"

"Sounds good to me," Maya said as we went to go open the chests. In the chest I opened, I saw that there were two shotguns in the chest. Both were labeled 'Sledge's Shotgun.'

"Found two shotguns. Says they're both Sledge's Shotguns. One is Bandit made, the other is Jakobs," I told her.

"I got an Maliwan SMG and a Jakobs shotgun. 'The Hellfire and the Striker.' They both look like good finds," Maya said, examining her guns.

"Wanna trade one?" I asked her. I was a little unsatisfied with my finds. Nothing but shotguns. And they were practically the same. Just different manufacturers.

"I'm keeping the SMG, but I'll trade the shotgun. I want the Bandit one. I like deep mags. I don't have to reload as often, therefore, I'm not as vulnerable," Maya said. I nodded and tossed her the Bandit made Sledge's Shotgun. She tossed me the Striker, and I put my new found loot in my ECHO.

"Am I cursed only to get shotguns as loot?" I asked myself before I walked out of the building and contacted Zer0. "Zer0. Come in. Did you get the chip?"

 _"Negative,"_ Zer0 simply said.

"What happened?" I asked.

 _"Wildlife provided a him with a distraction / They mainly focused on me / Nothing I could've done,"_ Zer0 said. I grunted in frustration.

"Ah, dammit. It's fine. We'll head back to the Gulag. At least Mordecai's without his precious little bird now," I said before ending the call. "Next time, I'll shoot instead of talking."

"That's the only decision when it comes to these bandits. But hey. What are you gonna do?" Maya said. I put a hand on her shoulder and immediately felt a surge of energy upon contact. It was weird. It was unfamiliar. It's like I was wearing shoes someone else had already broken into. That's what that surge of energy felt like.

"That was weird," I said, staring at my hand.

"You're telling me. Ignoring that, let's meet Zer0," Maya said, walking ahead of me. Call me whatever you want, but I didn't move just to watch Maya walk away. I don't know what it is about women, but the way they walk is seductive, and they don't even intend it.

"I see you staring," Maya said idly as she walked around the corner. I blushed a little before shaking it off and following her out of the door. To be honest, you couldn't blame me for staring. Maya looked _good._ I'd call you blind or an idiot if you thought otherwise.


	8. Chapter 8 - Correcting Jack

A/N: I'm accelerating up to Control Core Angel. Why? Because Jack didn't expect the Roland and others to recruit Brick and get the pocket watch from Opportunity. To which we couldn't react fast enough before they finished. At least in my mind for plot purposes. Just roll with it. I didn't plan on this lasting that long in the first place, so don't be complaining.

* * *

"Do you even expect the Bunker to kill these bandits?" I asked.

"Not really, but I expect for a few of their forces to be dented. We're likely to be joined by Roland and possibly the Siren," Jack told me. "Protect my daughter at all costs. Take the Siren alive if you can. I will arrive once the situation has been handled." I looked over to his daughter. The sight itself sickened me the way she looked. Being hooked up to the machine to survive. To be honest, it was a fate worse than death.

"I will do my best," I said, shutting off the call as I turned to Maya. "To be honest, this sight sickens me."

"Me too. This is a terrible fate, but we are paid to protect her," she said.

"I need to talk to him about this. This... I can only imagine what it's like to live a life like this," I said, looking back at his daughter before shaking my head. "Enough of that. We need to take positions."

"Where do you want me?" Maya asked.

"Taking position on the side of the entrance. I'll be on the opposite end. Zer0, if you can get up there, I want you in a sniping position. Blow the brains out of any Raider you see," I told him, pointing up near one of the Eridium injectors. He nodded and immediately started climbing up one of the poles and getting to the top. He cloaked himself and I could faintly see the outline of his body get out his sniper and aim it at the door. Though from a distance, there's no way that the Raiders who came in would be able to see him. Perfect if any bandit managed to get past us.

Then I saw the door open and a grenade thrown into the doorway. Me and Maya lightly hopped down from the platforms near the door and ducked down so they couldn't immediately see us. I could hear footsteps nearing us as we were ducked down.

"Area clear. Moving in to destroy target," I heard one of the Raiders say. I saw one of them jump down and I immediately raised up, summoned my Conference Call, and nailed the Raider in the back of the head. While I did that, Zer0 had also sniped one of the Raiders leading behind him and Maya filled the third guy full off incendiary shots from her Hellfire, incinerating the Raider quickly.

"Destroy the Eridium injectors!" I could hear Angel yell at the soldiers.

"They were waiting for us! We're been compromised!" I heard more Raiders scream from down the hallway. I climbed up on the side of the ledge and summoned a Phasebomb to my left hand before quickly wheeling around the corner and hurling it right down the middle. Multiple screams let me know that I had hit a fair amount of bandits. I then turned to Maya and did the hand gestures for 'moving in' and 'cover me.' She nodded and held her Hellfire with both hands while peeking around the corner.

I swapped out my Conference Call for a corrosive Maliwan SMG that I had gotten from a gun vendor and slowly walked down the hallway. Immediately several Raiders came around the corner with Bandit SMGs, but I immediately shot the one on the left with my gun as soon as I saw him and Maya hit the one on the right with her Hellfire. Barely a few bullets him my shield before they were overwhelmed with so many more bullets. I smiled at the screams of the Raiders. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. Eradicate what was left of this Atlas scum.

Continuing around the corner, I could see that a MIRV grenade had been thrown and I was forced out of the hallways to avoid the gigantic blast radius. I decided to lie prone in front of the door with my SMG ready to kill.

Raider by Raider, they attempted to push forward to get further into the Control Core, but the position me and Maya had set up was more enough to handle these bandits. They were going to need more than charging tactics to get past us.

I could a loud roar of wind and I faintly saw a flash of purple from behind me. I could see that Lilith had arrived and upon seeing me, her tattoos glowed and her eyes turned orange. I cracked my neck while standing up straight.

"Handle those bandits. I've got this bitch," I said, turning away from the door and stepping down from platform to face Lilith, who had her fists clenched tightly and her orange wings out. I simply shook my head.

"Oh, poor poor Lilith. Everything you bandits see as a way of life will be brought crashing down," I said, my hands spread wide.

"Fuck you traitor!" Lilith snarled.

"I was your enemy the moment you betrayed mankind. We have a chance to bring order to this hostile planet, and you want to stand in the way of that. For what? So you can kill whoever you want and loot whatever you want whenever you want? I have no respect for mercenaries who only value money and can't see that there are things more important that that," I said, my left fist close to my chest and my right hand pointing my gun at her sideways. "Now... surrender and Jack will spare your life."

"I'll never be your slave," Lilith said, charging at me in a Phasewalk. I sighed and held a Phasebomb directly in front of me, blasting us both backwards. I was simply forced back, but the force injured her a lot more than it did me. Her body parts were intact, but a few of her ribs were broken. I had a feeling that the only thing that would be capable of touching her was another Siren's power. And I was correct in that assumption. I then drew my Poly-Kryten blade.

"The boss is being generous. I wouldn't be. I'd take the time and slowly peel the flesh from your bones and leave your remains to the skags. It's not like you'd be much more of a use for anything else," I said evenly. Lilith snarled before she disappeared from my visual eyesight. Then she appeared again in a ball of flame, to which my own response was to jump up to the ledge where the blast radius wouldn't get me. I jumped back down while pointing my sword at her.

"So much effort wasted. So much energy wasted. That is why I am better than you. I am hardly using any effort whatsoever. Tiring yourself out will only grant me an easy victory," I said before I felt several shots hit my shield and I instantly used Lilith's Phasewalk ability to get out of the way. I figured out I had her powers and Maya's during the wasted trip to Thousand Cuts. Apparently, I could copy the powers of any Siren I came into contact with, which was dead useful.

"Back away!" Roland exclaimed, jumping down from his vantage point. I smiled.

"Excellent. Double the bandits. Double the fall. Zer0! If you would mind subduing our dear friend Roland..." I said gesturing out. I could barely see him in his actions, but he ended up getting behind Roland and removed his ECHO and shield right off him. Right when Roland turned around, Zer0 headbutted Roland directly in his face and his nose was broken while the assassin held his blade near his throat.

I was then hit by a Phasewalk from getting distracted by Roland's capture, but I easily recovered as the Phaseblast did not penetrate my Pangolin shield, which had a ton of capacity. I simply dusted nonexistent dust from my shoulder when I rose to my feet.

"One blow. Bravo dear. Shall I get you a dummy so it's as easy to hit? I mean, that's all you seem to be able to hit at the moment," I said with a chuckle. Lilith went into another Phasewalk, and I simply sidestepped by her run and she quickly turned back around get me without leaving Phasewalk, but it did not work in the slightest. I was laughing the entire time as well.

At one point, she had charged up to me and tried to punch me with a Phaseblast infused in it, but my tattoos then began to glow and I grabbed her punch that was heading for me by quickly going into Phasewalk's transparency.

"This is a waste of my time," I said before headbutting her in the mouth and sending her stumbling back. "Give up before I hurt you." Lilith instead growled before going for another lunge at me, but I quickly went out of Phasewalk and Phaselocked her instead. It couldn't Phaselock her because she was another Siren, but the power had done damage to her body by the way her body convulsed when I did it. She was barely standing when she recovered from her convulsions.

"Now you've pissed me off," I said, grabbing her by the throat. I then lifted her up and slammed her on her back as hard as I could. She spit in my face, but I only smirked in a dark way. Her defiance would only make this more fun. I picked her back while my grip was still on her throat.

"You bandits masquerade as tough Alphas, but are softer than the inside of a stalker. You were once a regular expert killer. A powerful Siren mercenary that had a name. Most people knew crossing you meant death to them. Now look at you. Just a miserable shell of your former self. So sure of your own powers to the point where you let yourself become weak. I'd actually take you more seriously if you were in your prime. Not anymore. You're hardly worth the bullets I'm going to have to replace when I finish killing all of your buddies," I said before pointing in up in the air. "You know that floating city up in the air? Yeah, we're going to kill everyone up there. Anyone that is not killed will be marked for treason. Imagine the screams of the people when we infiltrate their home and start tearing them apart with bullets. One by one, you will fall. Will it be your drunken sniper friend? Will it be that slow mechanic?"

I then put my sword under her chin and flicked it hard, drawing blood under her chin. She barely moved her head as she looked at me with hate. But I could see the fear as well.

"I think... we ought to start with your leadership. That's a _perfect_ place to start. We're all right here, right now. Why not?" I asked as I heard Maya's shooting had ceased. "They gone Maya?"

"Either they're all dead or they retreated. They won't be coming back here if they know what's good for them," Maya said.

"Good. I want you and Zer0 to bring over the commander of the Crimson Raiders. I think I'm going to show them what it means to truly suffer," I said, scratching another mark on Lilith's cheek. Blood coated the tip of it and I simply flicked it back on her face. "We will wait for Jack while I have my fun."

"No need cupcake," Jack said, suddenly appearing in the room. "I'm here. By all means, don't let me stop you from your fun. I don't care what you do with Roland, but the Siren I want alive."

"You son of a-" Lilith started to scream, but Jack gave her a swift kick across the face and she was forced to shut up real quick.

"You know, I'm tired of hearing you act like an angry and uncivilized bitch. So I'll make you act right. Sit her up," Jack said, pulling out a collar. I lifted Lilith up by the back of her hair and the tattoos on her body turned a dull purple when he snapped the collar on her neck. "This'll make sure you act right. Now, continue. Please, see if you can entertain me." I smiled as I walked over to Roland.

"You son of a bitch. Why did you decide to go over to Jack's side?" he asked.

"Cause I was never on your side in the first place. I played you from day one. Jack played you from the moment I walked onto the grounds of your precious city. The torture markings, the meeting with the fat mechanic? It was all planned. It was touch and go for a moment, but you were always several steps behind us the whole time," I said as I shortened my sword to its knife form and jamming it into Roland's shoulder, making him cry out in pain. "You think I wanted to work for the losing side... while also working for the bad side? No. I know exactly what I get myself into when I take on a job. You... are... no... different!" Every enunciation I made represented the further I was dragging my blade down the side of his shoulder. Then I traced it across his neck.

"Your entire city will fall commander. Without your leadership and Lilith's power, you aren't much to deal with," I said.

"They'll stop you," Roland said defiantly. Before he could even continue, I threw my head back and laughed. Like, I genuinely laughed my head off. The sniper was good at he did, but he still didn't stand a chance. And whatever they had to offer would fall before me and my partners. And that's not including the army of Hyperion soldiers and loaders that I co-command with Jack.

"Oh, that's good. That's very good. But if you don't mind, I'll take this from you," I said, removing Roland's Scorpio turret device off his body before walking a few inches away and drawing a Jakobs pistol. "It's over for you." My arm was the only thing that moved as I blasted Roland in his head without even looking at him.

"ROLAND!" I could hear Lilith scream, making me smile. I then turned to Jack and gave him an overzealous bow while waving my hand in a circle.

"Floor's all yours Jack," I told him.

"Now that entertained me. Good job kiddo. We'll be transferring the Siren to a different location ASAP. Hand her to the soldiers outside. I want to have a moment to myself," Jack said, gesturing to Maya and Zer0. They nodded and dragged the emotionally drained Siren out of the room. But I didn't move. Jack seemed to snap towards me.

"Did you not hear me?" he asked.

"I heard you. But I'm here to guide you on this. You know you can't keep her like this," I said, gesturing to Angel. She was staring face down at the ground, her expression dead.

"What do you mean by that?!" Jack snapped at me.

"Look at her! She's hooked up to this painful machine just to stay alive. That is no way to live no way, no how. And you can include the fact that she betrayed us to the bandits. Not only is she living in a life of agony, but she's trying to stop the very thing you're working so hard to achieve. We need to do this," I told him.

"We don't have to do anything!" Jack snapped at me, still looking at his daughter. I decided on psyching him out after that statement. I suddenly smiled.

"Oh, now I get you. You're having her live the rest of her life in agony because she helped the bandits. Ha! Nice!" I complimented him.

"I'm not try to do that!" Jack exclaimed.

"Then what are you trying to do?" I asked.

"Something! Anything that'll get her out of this," Jack said.

"I learned a long time ago that you can't save everyone. This is one of those times, Jack. Your daughter is dead. This... machine killed her. She can't live, she can't laugh, she can't feel pleasure, she can't do any of the things that a father wants her daughter to be able to do. Her life depends on this substance. It's no way to live," I told him.

"What would you have me do? I can't let her die," Jack said.

"Yes you can," I said. Only, I wasn't the only voice to speak. I could see that Angel had sat up to look directly at Jack.

"You don't care about me. I know that. You want to kill the only people I've had the fortune to call friends. But if you even give a little bit of a shit about me, you'd let me die. I'm tired of being hooked up to this machine. My life is miserable and I have a terrible father. Death is sounding much better to me right now," she said, making me cringe. Man, that was just cold. Then again, he did hook his own daughter up to this machine. But then again, maybe the problem was genetic? I didn't know what to believe.

"Angel..."

"No. Damn you asshole. Do one good thing for me and let me die here. Besides, you got a new Siren to charge the Key for you. You can afford to do so," Angel said bitterly. I put a reassuring hand on Jack's shoulder. He looked back at me, and I nodded.

"You're doing the right thing for you daughter by doing this," I assured him. Jack sighed.

"Stop the Eridium flow. Yes, I realized what I just said," Jack said over the ECHO before his tone turned angry. "No, I have not been replaced by an impostor, you idiot! My Angel is already suffering! I want to end it now. Cut off the flow to the Eridium, or I'll be down there personally to hammer you in your balls so hard, they'll be knocked into your esophagus. Call my bluff and watch what happens. You can be replaced easily enough." Soon after Jack said that, one by one, the Eridium flow to Angel was shut off and she screamed as the flow was shut off by each tube and Jack instantly ran over near her side.

"For once... For once you did something good for me," Angel said softly.

"I didn't want this to happen to you," Jack said, his voice heavy with regret.

"Well, it did. And it's your fault. I suppose I'll see you in Hell," Angel said, before her breathing stopped completely and she lay motionless. Jack trembled as he held his daughter close to him. He was seemingly trying to hold back his tears. I supposed my work was done here and I moved to walk out.

"I don't say this to many people, but thank you for helping me do the right thing with my daughter. You've been a very helpful Vault Hunter," Jack said.

"I'm not an average mercenary. Trust me on that. I will see you back at the Friendship Gulag," I said as I walked away from Jack. He may have not made the best decisions, but I hoped that I was helping him straighten out his path.

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A/N: This might not have all that many chapters left in it. As soon as it's over, I'm starting the Hammerlock's Hunt DLC. I wonder how many people are actually interested in that. Anyway, see ya!


	9. Chapter 9 - Talking With Maya

A/N: I should've gotten this out sooner, but I got caught up playing Pokemon Fire Red. Many of you don't know that that is childhood to me. Plus the grinding and the whooping ass aspect of the game is fun, albeit somewhat tedious and frustrating sometimes. But nonetheless, I'm not going to abandon you all. But there might be a slow down on the updates. Just a heads up.

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I sat on my bed while twirling my knife in my hand. I decide to chill for a moment before I figured out a better way to get up to Sanctuary. I asked Jack to let me and my friends go to the city and slaughter everyone in it, and he granted me that instead of just moonshotting the place. But we had to wait what to do next. I figured I could just show up with Zer0 and Maya and we could torch the place, but I wanted to take my time. I wanted the loss of their beloved commander and the Siren to really sink in and demoralize them. If any of them were smart, we'd have a few of them surrendering to us and we'd have less bloodshed.

"Man, I'm beat," I heard Maya say as she opened the door to the room we all shared.

"Got some jobs done?" I asked her.

"Plenty. Had me driving around a bunch of places. I helped Overlook get their medicine shipments back, which was something that they were suffering from. Didn't take long to fix that one with Jack's help. To think that Jack still has the time for a small sick town is quite endearing," Maya said, sitting on her bed.

"It really is. I can tell he's made some questionable decisions, but his intentions are pure," I said.

"I can believe that too," Maya said, before looking at the third empty bed. "Where's Zer0?"

"He said he had some jobs to do as well. He's probably hunting too. He's a bit of a big game hunter, if you will," I said.

"I could see him hunting every creature he could find. I guess he's going to go ahead and get his hunting down before The Warrior torches every creature here," Maya said.

"I'm gonna miss having stuff to shoot," I said with a small sigh.

"There will be other jobs. Therefore, there will always be other stuff to shoot. Jobs don't just exist on Pandora," Maya told me.

"Yeah, but there won't be jobs like this. These were certain some of the most interesting," I said.

"I suppose I can see what you mean by that," Maya said, before she sat up and leaned on the wall behind her to get a better look at me. "Nice knife."

"Thanks. My dad gave it to me after my first mercenary job. It extends into a sword when I jerk it hard. No sexual innuendo intended there," I said with a small smirk.

"Says the person I caught staring at my butt," Maya said, making me scratch the back on my head awkwardly.

"You don't forget, do you?" I questioned.

"No, I don't. I have a sharp memory. You have something to tell me?" Maya asked me.

"I'd say I'm... interested," I said slowly.

"You mean perverted," Maya said evenly.

"Well, way to ruin the subtlety," I said.

"It's not like you were being very subtle to be very honest. You took the time to stop completely and look. It may be a small thing to you, but it certainly doesn't suggest subtlety," Maya corrected me.

"I can see your logic in that statement. But I'd like to chalk it up to just being a guy," I said with an unaffected shrug.

"Hmm. To be honest, what you did is actually not all that common in my case," Maya said idly, making me look at her strangely. "What?"

"How, in the name of all that is holy, did no one think like me? Were they blind? You're very hot," I said with absolutely no embarrassment. That much I could easily admit.

"Mostly cause I think people feared me more than they were attracted to me," Maya said in a relaxed tone. Like she was already used to it.

"Just cause you're a Siren? That's stupid," I said, shaking my head.

"No, it's not cause of that. My situation is pretty unusual. I was used as a figure of intimidation without my knowing. I went almost two decades blind to it," Maya said. I sat up with rapt attention. This was interesting.

"And that situation being?" I questioned, curious about her life before Pandora.

"I was raised by a bunch of shithead cult members. I spent my whole life training while they were telling me that I was destined to protect the planet from a great evil with my Siren powers. In reality, that was bullshit. My powers were being used to intimidate the locals into doing what the Order demanded," Maya explained, laughing in a hollow and empty way. "I spent my whole life in a prisoner of my own jail. I gave up my desire to learn more about my heritage and travel the world for the Order for far too long. I was glad when I finally killed the bastard who was the ringleader of it all."

I had a deep frown on my face as Maya talked. I couldn't imagine your freedom being restricted like that. I could easily figure she couldn't make a decision herself without needing the consent of the Order. Not only that, but they proved to be dishonest and greedy in the process, which made it ten times worse.

"I'd be pissed too if I found out they were using me my whole life for the wrong cause. Especially if they were dickheads about it," I said, frowning deeply.

"I'm just glad it's over. I'm free to make my own decisions now," Maya said before rising to her feet and removing her boots and the socks underneath so she could walk around barefoot. "What's your story?"

"Me? I was raised in a family of mercenaries. My mom and dad were some of the best out of the bunch. This is actually his knife that I'm using right now that he gave to me," I said, holding up the knife. "Lot of people I've killed with this thing. It's severed me well."

"I use my power as a blunt baton when I need to get up close and personal. But I feel like I really should get a blade like you or Zer0 have," Maya said.

"There's nothing wrong with dispatching enemies how you see fit. I personally love death by decapitation. It's quick, but messy as blood spurts out of the wound and their head rolls on the ground. There's also something very satisfying about the crack of a bullet penetrating a skull as well," I explained.

"I personally have more fun restraining my enemies and leaving them helpless before killing them, relishing in the fact that they feel just as helpless as the victims they unjustifiably killed," Maya told me.

"I can definitely see the recompense in that form of killing," I said. (That's ironic cause Maya has a skill called Recompense)

"And it's my own personal style. I try to avoid killing anyone who doesn't deserve it if at all possible," Maya said before sitting in a crossed legs position on the end of my bed and looking at me with a sharp look. I raised an eyebrow at her as I felt slightly scrutinized by her gaze.

"Um... why are you staring at me like that?" I asked her.

"You intrigue me," Maya said simply.

"So you stare at me?" I questioned.

"Analyzing is a more accurate term. Yet you're kind of hard to figure out," Maya said.

"Call me a man with my own agenda. Cause that's what I am," I said before leaning back on my pillow. Then I could feel a small tickling sensation on my feet. I looked to the side to see Maya prodding them with her own feet.

"Any reason why you're playing footsies with me?" I questioned.

"To get your attention. Get up. I want to spar with you," Maya said before getting up off my bed and gesturing for me to do the same. "Come on. I could use something to do." I shrugged and stood up off my bed before looking towards Maya, who was gathering distance from me so we were within standard dueling distance. Luckily this room was big enough for us to fight in, so that was a plus.

"Ready?" Maya asked me, holding her hands out in front of her in a combative position.

"As always," I said, taking a fighting position of my own. Maya was the first to make a move as she stepped forward smoothly and lashed out with a roundhouse kick. I backed my head up to dodge the kick and began circling around her. She instantly spun on her heel towards me and started lashing out with randomly aimed punches.

Knowing that defense wasn't going to be a reliable option with her punches being so sporadic, I opted for powering through her blows and lashing out with a hard push with the palms of my hands. I got hit twice in the nose and the chest, but they didn't hurt all that much. I immediately took her stunned state as an opportunity to press my advantage and started lashing with punches.

Maya quickly recovered from my push to her chest and raised her hands to defend herself, her arms coming in at the exact moment before my blows landed. I did a small jump to the side and instead of lashing out with a punch, I opted for a low kick to the side of her knee. This caught her off guard and I threw her off balance before instantly opting for a swift punch to the side of her ribs and a kick to the face that knocked her to the ground.

But she quickly recovered from the attack and flipped back on to her feet before hopping up and down in place a few times as if to get some of her flow back. I swept the tip of my nose twice in succession before moving my neck to the right with my fists still raised.

"Watch the mixups beautiful," I said with a small teasing grin. Maya gave me a small annoyed look before we started to circle each other like sharks. I was the first one to advance to her and I jumped in for a flying kick. She raised her arms and blocked the kick before smoothly diverting around my foot before I hit the ground and hit me with two hard hits to the face before it quickly changed to punches to the ribs and a kick that forced me back, holding the side she kicked.

 _"Dayum,"_ I thought as I was holding my side. That was some very smooth momentum.

She was done as she quickly advanced forward and tried to take advantage of my injured ribs before going in for a roundhouse that I managed to block. She then went for swift punches that I had to work overtime to block before I took more damage to my already punished face. Though it wasn't as bad as my ribs. Those were as sore as a motherfucker.

At one point I managed to grab one of her roundhouse kicks that she sent at me, but she attempted to use her second foot to hit the back of my head so that I would release her. Unfortunately for her, this was a move that I employed plenty of times, so I was able to duck as it came hurtling towards me and I managed to grab her other foot. She was forced to use her hands to prevent her from banging her head on the ground hard, which only made the position we were in more awkward.

Though I ignored my more dirty thoughts and flipped her in the air before jumping at her descending body for a double flying kick that hit her in her stomach and forced her into the wall hard enough to put a small crack on it. I could see Maya clench her fists in pain before pounding the ground and rose back to her feet.

"I thought for sure that trick would get you," Maya said as she flexed her shoulders to try and shake some of the soreness off.

"I use it plenty of times. It doesn't work on me," I told her before notice she was holding her back and looking at her in concern. "I didn't kick you too hard, did I?"

"Well, my spine hates me right now, so does that answer your question?" Maya questioned before giving out a small cry of pain as she moved her back the wrong way. "Ah! Fuck! That wall hurt like hell." I grabbed my ECHO and summoned a hypo for her to heal herself up with. She instantly injected into her neck and sighed in relief.

"That's better. Man, you're good," Maya said.

"So are you. But I think we both tend to use moves that are relatively unsafe to try and push for an advantage. That's how you got me in my ribs and I got you with that kick into the wall," I deduced.

"Probably so. I think we both underestimated each other was the problem," Maya said.

"Likely so. Which was a mistake. Unsafe moves tend to be moves that end things quicker. That's we tried to use them. But we can't do that as often as we'd like. It might be an eternity before either of us finds a dent in each others armor, but hey. That's the fun of sparring," I said with a good natured smile. Maya smiled before walking up to me and holding out her hand in a friendly manner. I shook it shortly before pulling her closer into a hug.

"Come on. Don't be afraid to bring it in," I said in a mirthful tone. Maya squirmed out of my hug, her face slightly flushed.

"Don't do that," she said firmly. Almost hostile. That threw me off guard.

"Ok. I'm sorry. Guess you don't like getting hugged," I said, raising my hands in surrender. Maya scratched the back of her head somewhat awkwardly.

"I'm sorry. Didn't mean to get that angry. I don't like people touching me without my permission," she said.

"And that has been never." The words came out before I could stop myself. But at the same time, I felt like it needed to be asked.

Maya eyed me with a cold expression before turning away and walking out of the room. I rubbed my face and mentally shook my head at my own stupidity. I probably should've been a lot kinder about it. The way I did go about it was kind of a jackass move. I simply collapsed on my bed and let myself get lost in my thoughts.

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A/N: Kind of a short chapter, but I wanna get into personal moments before I move on to Hero's Pass. Either way, I hoped you enjoyed this.


	10. Chapter 10 - The Final Battle

"I have news. The Raiders have infiltrated the Arid Nexus, which is where the Hyperion Info Stockade is," I told Maya and Zer0 after I got off the ECHO with Jack.

"They aren't going to be there now, as we can very well guess. Why is the information important?" Maya asked.

"Because there's a good chance they found out where The Warrior is buried to stop us. Jack wants us to go to Hero's Pass ASAP to help defend the Vault Key," I told them. Zer0 immediately rose to his feet with his sword at at the ready.

Maya grabbed her ECHO on her bedside table and summoned her Hellfire to her hands. I was already ready to head out, so the three of us walked out with Hyperion soldiers outside waiting for us. They immediately saluted as soon as we walked outside of the building.

"Vault Hunters," the men chorused at the same time. I nodded at the soldiers.

"At ease. Are we set for Hero's Pass?" I questioned.

"Yes sir. We shall input the coordinates for you in the Fast Travel. Mister Jack wants at least one of you defending the Vault Key while the rest of you head off the bandits," one of the soldiers told me.

"That sounds fine. We'll head at the edge of Hero's Pass and head them off when they arrive. Are you participating in the Hero's Pass main strike?" I asked him.

"No sir. We'll be holding our post here," the man said. I nodded before following the soldier to the Fast Travel. I then contacted Jack.

"Got my hands full cupcake. What do you need?" he asked.

"We're heading to Hero's Pass now. We'll deal with the Raiders as they come," I told him.

"That sounds good. Who are you going to have posted to defend the Vault Key?" Jack asked.

"I'll have Zer0 posted near you. He's a master of the element of surprise. Those bandits somehow get past us, they're dead as soon as they walk in," I told him.

"That sounds good. Just get here," Jack said. I shut off the call and turned to Zer0.

"I want you to aid Jack with defending the Vault Key. I have confidence in your stealth and ambush capabilities. You are the best person for to take position there," I told him. He nodded before I turned to Maya.

"You'll be with me in the main strike. The _ex-Lancemen,"_ I said the words with malice. "should be easy enough to kill."

"They won't survive this. Every odd is against them," Maya said, making me smile.

"Exactly my thinking," I said as we made it to the Fast Travel.

The whole place was in a scramble as the base was preparing for the arrival of the Raiders. We walked towards the end of the base and Zer0 was the only one who continued towards Jack's location while we remained on the outside. Me and Maya sat on a stone near the entrance, waiting on an update.

"The soldiers are standing by," a soldier told me, walking up to me.

"Good. We'll advance further when they arrive. I want to see if the loaders and soldiers can deal with these bandits. Inform me when they arrive," I told him.

"Yes sir," the soldier said, walking off. I looked over at Maya, who's face was dead serious.

"You look tense," I told her.

"We're about to get into a fight. Of course I'm tense," Maya said.

"You don't have to until they arrive. I find that I focus a lot better when I relax before I immerse myself in the fight," I told her.

"Well, I may try your suggestion. But don't hold your breath," Maya said. I nodded, but didn't take my eyes off her. I looked at her with an examining look. I didn't really talk much with this woman. And I was vastly interested in her. Physically, emotionally, and mentally. Maya turned towards me as I was looking at her and quickly looked away.

"You're not even going to ask?" I questioned. Maya didn't respond, so I decide to respond in a casual way. I was going to hope these bandits were going to do one thing right and take their damn time.

I placed my arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer before moving her chin to look me in the face.

"I'll ask you again, and I genuinely want to know. Has anyone toughed you affectionately?" I asked. She attempted to move her head away, but I kept her face looking towards me. I could easily see that she was uncomfortable with this situation, but I wasn't going to let her run.

"You wanna do this now?" Maya asked.

"Yes. I'm wondering-"

"How you can try to seduce me?" Maya asked me.

"Seducing, no. Though I would like to get to know you. Physically, emotionally, and mentally. I really want to know what makes you... tick," I said, saying the last word with a sharp flick of my tongue.

"What do you propose?" Maya questioned.

"How about you choose what area we explore and we'll see where that goes. Because personally, I find you attractive in every way and I don't want to pass you by. I'm a patient person," I said.

"And how would you demonstrate physically?" Maya asked. I smirked. She wanted to start physically out of all things? That definitely told me something. Or maybe I was just reading too much into it. Or maybe, this was her way of edging this forward. I could tell that she didn't really know the meaning of love. Platonic or romantic. So I wanted to help her out. That was my main reason for doing this.

My side reason for doing was cause I definitely wanted a chance at dat booty. I internally shook my head at my own choice of wording, but let's face it. I'd have to be half brain dead, gay, or really professional to keep this platonic. I was definitely not brain dead or gay. But I wasn't _that_ professional.

"Allow me to demonstrate," I said, my heart starting to beat a little fast. I was a little nervous cause I wasn't the most experienced person in the world, but I took chances when I could.

I turned towards her and one of my hands was on her waist with the other on her shoulder, drawing her closer to my lips. I leaned forward to deepen the kiss, and I heard Maya give off a small moan. So far, so good.

I didn't even notice that I had pushed her down to lay on the stone we were sitting on, but when I stopped kissing her, that's exactly the position we were in. Damn, was I that gone from the world?

I stared at her with a coy smile on my face as I sat up. I was slightly embarrassed because I'm sure she felt my erection poking at her thigh while we were laying on the stone, but it was overridden by eagerness and from this woman turning me on so damn good.

"So... was that a decent enough demonstration?" I asked. Maya was looking slightly breathless, her hair all over the place rather than it being straight like usual, and her face flushed. She looked like the most beautiful woman on earth to me with this look.

When she didn't respond, I responded by moving the strands of hair out of her face with a small smile on my face.

"I guess you're satisfied. Alright, then-" Then I felt her abruptly grabbed my head and pull me closer, locking lips with me again. She seemed a lot more eager as well as confident. I definitely was not going to fight her on this.

Then I could hear whooping on the right side of me. Maya gently pushed on my chest to break the kiss before sitting up and walking off. I groaned. I'm not sure if the cockblocking was intentional or an accident. Either way, I was upset.

"Goddammit!" I exclaimed before gesturing to the soldiers. "Couldn't you have just kept quiet?!" The soldiers rubbed their necks in minor embarrassment, which made me roll my eyes before going over to Maya.

"Don't say it," she immediately told me.

"Say what?" I asked.

"That what we did was stupid," Maya said.

"Actually, I was wondering when we could do it again. I don't know how in the hell you came to that conclusion," I told her. Maya looked back towards me and raised an eyebrow.

"What about your professionalism?" Maya questioned.

"When it comes to a woman like you, fuck professionalism," I said, walking closer to her and putting my hands on her hips. I moved my face closer to hers and kissed her. Not in a passionate way, but more in a tender and caring way.

"I'd love a woman like you by my side. Do you want a man like me is the question?" I asked.

"As long as you can promise we one thing," Maya said.

"What is it?" I asked.

"If you'll teach me what it means to be treated like a woman. Cause my whole life, I've been treated like a soldier," Maya said.

"For that to happen, you have to let me. I know you're a strong, independent woman. It's one of the most attractive things about you. But at times, just let me do things for you. You don't have to do it all alone," I told her, holding out my hand. She grasped it and gave me a nod.

"I'll do my best," she said.

"My answer is the same," I said, pulling her head closer and kissing her on the forehead.

"I assume we'll be invited to the wedding after we're done here?" I heard of the soldiers ask. Maya rolled her eyes as I put my arm around her shoulders before looked at the soldiers in question.

"If we do, none of you clowns are invited," I said, pointing at the soldiers in question with my other free hand. Then there was an explosion in the distance, causing me to immediately jerk my head towards the direction it came from. It wasn't faint, but it wasn't really easy to hear either.

"Time to get down to business," I said, summoning my Conference Call and draping it over my shoulder as I walked towards the sound of the explosion, Maya right next to me with her Hellfire. Then a soldier ran up to me before saluting.

"Sir. We may be able to eliminate one of the leaders with a moonshot. Just give us a few moments to set it up. If you feel as if you can wait, hold out on advancing," he told me. I nodded.

"Very well. But I want to be close to the action if it doesn't work," I told him.

"Very well. If that's the case, then I'd suggest holding position near our shield wall. That may give us enough time to prepare and you'll be clear out to kill what's left of them," the soldier told me.

"Very well," I said, walking forward until I found this shield wall he mentioned. Didn't take me long to find it. It was kind of hard to miss a giant yellow wall with the Hyperion symbol on it.

I teleported me and Maya up to a higher vantage point to get a better bird's eye view of the situation. I could see that Mordecai, the drunken sniper was on a stolen drop barge and being swarmed by JET loaders. Then I saw that Brick had jumped up there to try and help him. I smirked. They'd both die on that drop barge.

When I saw the drop barge get moonshotted, normally I would figure that no one would survive that. But this was not a normal situation. After I finished here, I was going to send squads all over possible routes they could've climbed out of. They would not get away if I had anything to say about it. This. Ends. Now.

Me and Maya jumped down to meet what soldiers they had. They had but one Lanceman and Krieg with Tiny Tina riding piggyback on him. I had my hands on the side of me as I slowly walked forward as if I was greeting old friends.

"How nice of you to join the party!" I exclaimed before quickly blasting the Lanceman in the head before he could even react. "We don't need any Lanceman scum here. How about you drop your weapons, swear your allegiance to Hyperion, and we don't have to kill you?"

"MY AXE IS THIRSTY!" Krieg yelled before charging forward while Tiny Tina was summoning grenades from her ECHO and chucking them at us. I teleported me and Maya away from the grenades and directly behind them. I then grabbed Tina off Krieg's back and tossed her towards Maya, who immediately put the thirteen year old in an iron chokehold. Krieg immediately wheeled around with an axe blow, but I deflected it and pushed him back.

"Amuse me bandit. Come on. Give it your best shot," I said, with my blade at my side and my hand moving in a 'come here' motion. Krieg roared before charging towards me and started hitting me with reckless axe attacks that I could easily maim him for. Which I did. When he tried hit me with a particularly sloppy attack, I spun my blade and disarmed him of his axe before headbutting him down on the ground. He quickly stood up, but I was ready to finish this.

"For Pandora!" I exclaimed as a testament to this planet being plagued by these unholy beings.

I impaled Krieg in his stomach, and I could hear him groan in pain. I could hear him spit something up, which was blocked by his mask. Bet that wasn't pleasant.

I continued by twisting the blade further in before suddenly jerking it out and decapitating him. His body stayed upright and walked from side to side a few times before crumpling as the stump where his head used to be continued to squirt out blood. I held out my hands on my side and looked towards the sky in celebration. We had won this battle.

I looked back towards Maya, who was no longer holding Tina. I saw that she was dead on the ground, so I could assume Maya either choked her to death or snapped her neck. Choking was a risky business, so I had to ask.

"How'd you kill her?" I asked.

"Snapped her neck. Choking her is too risky," Maya said, making me smile.

"You think just like me on that matter," I said before getting on the ECHO. "Commander!"

"Yes General?" he asked.

"Get some squads together and survey the lava wreckage. I have a small suspicion that the bandits we bombed might have gotten away somehow," I told him.

"Yes sir. I'm sending a squad towards you as well. If you see him, you'll have the number for intimidation," the commander said.

"Get here as fast as you can," I said before shutting of the call. I then turned towards Maya and kissed her lightly. "How about a date after this?"

"On Pandora? Not the most romantic place on earth. And this is coming from me," Maya said, gesturing to the place around her. I smiled and shook my head.

"I'll see what Jack can do for us. But I can definitely say that I've found a permanent partner in you as well as Zer0," I said. Maya smiled.

"Can't wait to see what insanity we can get into in the future," she said.

"It's going to be glorious," I said before leading her over the edge of the lava rock and keeping an eye on it. Our forces arrived not too long after we settled near the rock. Then it was nothing but a waiting game to see if they were down there.

Eventually, we saw that Brick and Mordecai were stepping on lava rocks to avoid burning up completely. I gestured for everyone to back up before they saw us. We waited for them to arrive at the top, and the soldiers clicked their guns as they made it to the top. I had a smirk on my face as I held my hands out.

"I had a feeling you weren't dead. I'm surprised-" Brick immediately charged towards me, but when he threw a punch, I evaded it while chopping off the hand that threw the punch as his other fist was coming at me. I cut that one off quickly too. All within the span of seconds.

"You may be one of the great leaders of the Crimson Raiders, but in reality, you're nothing but a thug who doesn't have any skill apart from punching. Look at that. Your hands are gone. What the fuck are you going to do?" I questioned, getting close to his face with bared teeth as his stumps were dripping blood.

Then I felt a big and hard boot hit my chest, sending me flying. I simply teleported right back in front of Brick upright and, shortening my sword to a knife, chopped off his nose in an instant. I then kicked him onto his back before Phaselocking him. Of course, it wasn't my intention to trap him. I didn't want to trap him. I wanted the force of the Phaselock to hurt him, and it did judging by the groan he let out when I did, I succeeded.

"VETE ET DIABLO, HIJO DE PUTA!" Mordecai roared, the soldiers holding his shoulders to stop him from moving. I drew my Conference Call as I walked to Brick's head and shot him several times, reducing his face to a bloody mess. Mordecai gave an even louder bellow, but as I turned to him, Maya already had a Jakobs pistol of her own out and shot him in the face twice, causing him to crumple in the soldiers' arms, making them immediately let go of him.

"I knew I was going to enjoy the day when these bandits died. I'm even more glad I got to watch it close up," one of the soldiers said. I nodded before clapping all of the soldiers on their backs.

"You're good men. Very good men. You are all war heroes. Cause you are part of this noble cause. No matter how small your role was," I said, raising my hands.

"You most of all. You, your Siren ally, and the assassin are all people of action. And those are the best kind of people in war. People who do what they have to do. It was a pleasure serving under you," the soldiers said, standing at attention and saluting me. Me and Maya did the same in respect.

"The pleasure was mind. Now, we have a Warrior to awaken," I said, grabbing Maya and teleporting to Jack's location. He was slightly startled by the sudden light, but he calmed down upon seeing it was us.

"They all dead?" he asked.

"Every last one who came. No survivors, no mercy," I told him proudly. I then heard give Lilith give off an angry growl from her elevated position, and the smile on my face only got wider.

"That's excellent news. You... you are definitely one of the best people I've known. No offense to you cupcake, but he stuck with me from the beginning," Jack said, pointing to Maya then pointing to me. "You are set for life. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, but there are always more jobs to pull off. This one will be the most memorable," I said with a smile as the I saw the Vault Key form together and float just above the hole in the ground.

"Key's charged," Jack said. I gestured to him.

"Go ahead. Awaken the Warrior. Awaken him and drown these bandits in fire," I told him. Jack seemed to look at the Key before shaking his head.

"No. You do it," he said. My eyes widened.

"Wait, me?" I questioned, pointing to myself.

"You've definitely earned it kiddo. Plus, I can say that I trust you to use its power well. Much better than me. You haven't made as many mistakes as I have," Jack said, gesturing to the Key. I slowly walked over to the Key and pushed it into the spot at the bottom. Upon insertion, Lilith fell from the sky and a large force field was put around the Key. But I was able to walk out while dragging Lilith's body out as well.

I watched the rock formation of the Vault symbol, and nothing happened for a moment. But eventually, as if my thoughts were read, The Warrior suddenly rose from under the lava, climbed on top of the formation, and roared loudly in a sign of dominance. But it settled down and was looking at me, seemingly waiting on an order. I raised my arms as if I was raising the dead or some shit like that and spoke to the sky.

"This will be a day long remembered. Soon this planet will be a place worth living in," I said. The Warrior was awoken. Now time to remake this planet.

* * *

A/N: And there it is! The very thing we've been building up to all this time! I certainly had fun writing these last few chapters. I wouldn't expect this story to last much longer. Probably a chapter or two. And I know this isn't quite as good as my Male Siren story, but I appreciate everyone who supported this nonetheless. Catch ya next time!


	11. Chapter 11 - To You

A/N: This is the final chapter! I can finally wrap this story up! And you all know what that means. Hammerlock's Hunt on the original Male Siren storyline. I'm wondering if a lot of you are going to be around for that. Anyway, here's the last chapter! This shouldn't be a long chapter. I actually expect to be very short.

* * *

The pupils in my eyes were shining with a bright orange on the very outside, while I had a smile on my face as I surveyed the chaos that was taking place.

The Warrior, the Eridian creature that I commanded, was currently on a rampage. Maya and Zer0 had gone to deal with Sanctuary and burn it to the ground while I led the Warrior through Pandora. There was a lot of Pandora that was infected by bandit and wildlife impurity alike. But I was going to get the job done. I didn't have to shoot anything cause I didn't have to, but it was kind of boring. All I really had to do was direct the Warrior where to go and it would destroy it. Everything that tried to shoot us was engulfed in flames after a few shots.

 _"How you doing out there kiddo?"_ Jack asked me over the ECHO.

"A little bored. But I've covered a lot of ground with the Warrior. Eridium Blight, Sawtooth Cauldron, and The Dust have fallen. I'm making my way through Three Horns now. I tell you, directing this thing is tiring when you've got nothing to shoot.

 _"The fun part of the job is over. Now it's all about getting the tedious parts done. Once you do that, you will have truly finished here,"_ Jack told me, cutting off the ECHO.

It took weeks extended into more weeks to finish off Pandora. And this was directing the Warrior 60 hours a day. It was tedious as all living fuck. It sucked that I couldn't just transfer the orders to someone else, but no. The Warrior listens to me and me alone. Even if I tell the Warrior to listen to them. So this was a job only I could do. Now I'm sure Jack was happy he gave the responsibility of the Warrior to me. Cause he doesn't have to do this.

"You tired?" Maya asked me when I dragged myself into our room in the Friendship Gulag. That was the only part of The Dust that wasn't engulfed in flames.

"Very. I hate directing that thing with nothing to shoot or entertain myself in the meanwhile. It's a tedious job," I told her, collapsing on my bed. Maya looked up from her book to walk over next to me and lay down to the bed next to me. I raised an eyebrow at this.

"Decided to join me?" I questioned idly.

"Yes," Maya said just as idly.

"Sorry I haven't had a chance for that date. This has just got to get done," I told her.

"I understand. You have to do what you have to do," Maya told me. I grabbed her hand that was normally gloved, but not this time and rubbed my thumb over it.

"My father used to always tell me, 'Son, you may not always be able to do what you want to do, but you always have to do what you have to do.' That advice really applies to this situation," I said, raising her hand to my lips and kissing it tenderly. Maya smiled.

"That's very good advice. And if you're done talking about work, we can do something besides you setting her and talking while rubbing my hand. It's sweet, but I hope you don't expect me to get by on that alone," she said, making me grin widely before rolling on top of her.

"Alright. Then enough pleasantries," I said before holding the back of her head and capturing her lips in a kiss. She grabbed the back of my head and gripped what little hair I had while pushing my head further down, deepening this kiss.

"Sir, you've made..." I heard someone say. I immediately rolled off Maya and off the bed straight on my feet. I looked towards the door to see that a Hyperion soldier had walked in and I'm sure if I could've seen his face, it would've been an extremely awkward one.

"...a lot of progress..." he continued awkwardly.

"Yeah. I know I've made a lot of progress. I was there when it happened. Now it's been a long day, and I'm tired. Can I please have the little time I get out of these days to myself please?" I asked politely. Though I was about ready to flail some people alive if I couldn't 'relieve' some stress.

"Yes sir. Um... I'll just refer to Mr. Jack and he'll refer to you at a later date. Forgive me for barging in," the soldier said, backpedaling out of the door. I turned back to Maya, who was looking at me with an even look. Then the look turned into one of a type of seductive daring as she gestured her finger back and forth. I smiled. The moment was not ruined yet.

"First things first..." I said before rushing over to the door. I immediately sealed it before heading back over to Maya. Whether she suddenly became more comfortable with her sexuality or she wanted me as much as I wanted her, I couldn't tell. Whatever the reason, I didn't care. All that really mattered was what was happening now.

* * *

I laid on my bed with my hands on the back of my head, sighing in relaxation. This is really what I needed. A chance to relax.

"Feeling good?" I asked idly as I looked towards Maya. I don't recall her ever having a messy look. But her hair was no longer straight like it was before, her face was red, lips puffy, and her shirt wrinkled. I had never even seen her without her yellow light armor plate on her chest before now. I liked her more in a tank top.

"Yeah. You?" Maya asked.

"Very. That's certainly a way to relax from boring jobs," I said evenly.

"It's certainly better than reading," Maya said.

"Then I _must_ be good. That's all you do in your spare time when you're not working," I told her.

"Cause I do like to read. Doesn't compare to this though. First time I've felt like a woman in my life. Never got any of that on Athenas," Maya said, crossing her leg over her foot.

"Well, I'm certainly glad I'm helped you reach that point. But regardless whether you had me or not, you'd still be a woman. And a damn good one too," I told her.

"Thanks. But I'd be missing that certain affection that I've never gotten if I didn't have you. Cause lets face it. I'm pretty sure you're the only one who's actually close to me. I either have enemies or allies. That's about it," Maya said.

"Well..." I said, grabbing ahold of her hand again. "I think I can grow to love you after a while. I won't lie. I won't tell you that I love you just cause that's just what you want to hear. I'm telling you that I haven't quite grown to love you. I definitely have feelings for you, but it hasn't evolved into full blown love yet. That takes time."

"I appreciate your honesty. Cause I suppose I feel the same way," Maya said, gripping my hand tighter. Then I could see my ECHO flashing brightly. I groaned.

"How much you want to bet it's Jack?" I asked.

"Don't have to bet. I know it is," Maya said, passing my ECHO. I then answered the call.

"Speak," I said evenly.

 _"How ya doing kiddo?"_ Jack asked.

"Knew it was going to be you. What do you need? I've covered my rounds of the Warrior for today," I told him.

 _"Yeah, I know that. But I've got a surprise for you. You and your Siren friend. Zer0's already been down here, so don't worry about him. Get to the center of the base,"_ Jack said. I nodded. Sounds like he had another reward for us.

"Alright, we'll be there soon," I said before facing Maya. "He's got another reward for us."

"Another one? Wow, this job turned out to be really worth it," Maya said before looking pointedly at me. "Beyond worth it." I couldn't help but grin like a fool.

"I couldn't agree more," I said, giving her a small kiss on the lips. "You going out in the tank top?"

"No. Personally, you're the only one I'm taking it off for," Maya said, going for her armor. I raised an eyebrow.

"Wow. That sounded extremely sexual, even though that was far from your intention I'm sure," I told her. Maya chuckled a little as she shook her head.

"Yeah. I've definitely fallen for a hormonal guy. It's only gonna get worse the more we advance in this relationship, isn't it?" Maya asked.

"Oh, most definitely. It's alright. I have a feeling the same will happen to you too," I said, cracking my neck before gesturing towards the door. I allowed Maya to pass before following directly behind her and staring at her ass the entire time.

"I knew that was your plan," Maya said without even turning around. I grinned before quickly catching up and smacking it lightly. She turned and gave me a light smack up the side of my head, but I could tell it was all in good fun.

We made it to the center of the base that Jack mentioned, and the first thing I saw was the big ass shuttle that was in the center.

"Is this our reward?" Maya asked as we walked up to him.

"Kinda. You'll need this to get to the reward. Don't worry. You'll like the surprise," Jack said, gesturing to the ship. We looked at each other and shrugged before getting on the shuttle. Maya made idle conversation with me until we ran out of stuff to talk about. Then she pulled out two books for us to read. Then the shuttle was completely quiet for the rest of the trip. Personally, I didn't mind a good book to read. I had a lot of things that were higher on my list to do, but I liked reading. Relaxing and informative.

"We're here," the pilot said. The only two words that he had said this entire trip.

I handed Maya her book back before I moved to the door of the shuttle. Upon stepping off, I noticed that we were definitely in space. There was no question judging by the endless abyss that was behind the shuttle. More specifically, it looked like we were on Helios.

"This Jack's space station?" Maya asked me.

"Looks like it. Why'd he send us here?" I asked as a man was walking up to us.

"Are you the Vault Hunters Maya and Robert?" the man asked.

"That's us. Who wants to know?" I asked. Then the man grinned widely before going into a low bow.

"First of all, Jack told us all about you. Can't tell you how glad you showed up. I just had to get that out of the way," he said in an excited tone.

"Our pleasure. Now if you don't mind..." I said, moving my hands in a circling gesture to make him continue.

"Oh, right! This way please. Handsome Jack has a surprise for you both," the man said, walking the other way.

We followed closely behind him. Maya's eyebrows were furrowed in a type of questioning way. I had a thoughtful look on my face as I walked without even thinking about it. He was leading us on quite the run around. I sincerely hoped he wasn't about to stab me in the back. Cause I don't want to have to burn this station to the ground and tell The Warrior to destroy everything Hyperion is trying to build. Would've been a complete waste of resources.

He led us to a double glass door before pushing it opened. What was behind the door was a restaurant. Though I could easily say it was one of the most fancy ones I've seen. It had a low red lighting with a crystal chandelier directly at the top in the center of the ceiling. The carpet that was on the ground had a smooth, velvety look to it. Almost as if you touched it, it'd feel like straight silk. But the number of tables were very much reduced. There were only two chairs and a table directly in the center. I didn't need to second guess what he brought us up here for. But I couldn't resist smiling.

"I know exactly why he brought us here," I said before contacting him.

 _"Like it?"_ Jack asked me.

"How'd you even know?" I asked as the man lead us further inside.

 _"I have security cams in every room of the base. One look in yours told me all I needed to know when you two were going at it like you were trying to eat each other,"_ Jack said with a laugh, making me blush a little bit. But that small bit of embarrassment was extinguished by disbelief.

"Wait, you were spying on us?" I said in a tone of flabbergasted disbelief. The expression on my face was likely to be hilarious as I said that.

 _"Considering the show you two were putting on, it's kinda hard not to. Think about that the next time you two want to make out in my base, eh?"_ Jack said. I could hear the laughter in his voice. He was enjoying this.

"Wow. You are an asshole. But you're a good person at the same time," I told him.

 _"Thanks. Now, enjoy tonight. I got you dinner, clothes, and a hotel room. On number three, number two probably won't be used very much,"_ Jack said, innuendo dripping from his tone.

"Stop it," I told him in a tone that was attempting to be stern, but ended coming out hoarser than I imagined.

 _"Whatever you say, Casanova. Anyway, I'll leave you in the hands of Aurelia. She'll take care of the rest,"_ Jack said, shutting off the call. I looked up and the man that lead us here was gone. In his place was a woman with a strapped dress that looked like it was worth a ton of money. She had her hands behind her back and a composed look on her face as if she was a paragon of class and etiquette. Judging by the way she looked, she probably was.

"I assume Jack is done with you for tonight?" she asked.

"More than likely he is, yes," I told her.

"Finally. Now, he rented out this place for the both of you. It wasn't cheap, I might add. But regardless whether it is reserved for you two, I still abide by a certain law of class. So..." Aurelia said, summoning a tuxedo that looked exactly my size from the ECHO gripped in a perfectly polished series of nails. "Get changed." She tossed the tux at me before pointing to a room in the back. I walked to the room in the back and changed quickly like I always tended to do. I didn't want to take too much time just to change out of a certain pair of clothes.

I walked back in the main hall in a few seconds, adjusting my tie and walking with a confident stride. I felt really good while wearing this. It wasn't often I wore stuff like this. Normally it was mercenary gear or casual clothing. Never formal wear like this.

"That is much better. Like expected, your lady is not ready yet, so..."

"Let's get something straight. She's not my lady. We haven't quite figured out what we are, but she's not my lady," I told her sternly.

"I fail to see the point of your offense you took of my statement. Isn't it-"

"When you say 'your lady,' I think of it as if she's a notch in my belt. Something that there are more of or I can replace readily. That is not the case. So if you would mind, do not use that wording around me," I said, a hint of warning in my voice.

"Very well. Then do I address her as?" Aurelia asked me.

"Her name, Maya. Address me the same way. That makes things much simpler," I told her.

"Very. Then take a seat as you are waiting for her to come out," Aurelia said stiffly. I nodded before walking to the table that was in the center of the room and had my foot crossed over my knee in a form of relaxation.

I took less than five minutes for Maya to finally come out. The door opening immediately caught my attention, and I immediately looked towards the direction the sound came from and what I saw caused me to stand to my feet and my eyes to widen.

Maya walked out of the room looking down at the dress she was wearing and smoothing it out. The color was very reminiscent of refined Eridium; a bright purple that immediately caught attention and left you in a daze at how beautiful it looked. Though it only enhanced the look of the woman in it.

"Hmm. Very nice dress. I do suppose..." Maya said before looking up at me staring at her before smiling. "I see someone else likes it."

"It only refines the look of the woman in it," I said, going up to her and placing my hands on her cheeks and kissing her lightly on the forehead. I then led her over to the table in the center and pulled out her chair for her. She walked around and sat in the chair before I pushed it up for her.

"Looks like we got that date that we never went on," I said as I sat back down.

"Looks like it," Maya said, looking around. I looked around and saw that Aurelia had disappeared.

"Guess she went to get the food. Anyway, just..." I was cut off by the door opening. As I turned, I could see a waiter carrying a bottle of champagne and two menus as he strode over to our table.

"Sir. Madam. Enjoying your evening?" he asked us.

"Very much so, thank you. Maya?" I asked her.

"It's going fairly well," she said.

"Excellent. I can't believe you two have fallen for each other. The galaxy will rave over you two. You can bet that you'll be the talk of ECHOnet," the man said, pouring champagne in our glasses.

"That is if they find out. And until something solidifies, I want no one sticking their nose in our business," I said sternly.

"Me as well," Maya said.

"Don't worry. My lips are sealed. Just enjoy today. I guarantee you'll love what we have to offer," the man said, placing the menus on our table walking away from us. Before we even touched the menus, I grabbed my glass and raised it. Maya did the same.

"Shall we toast?" I said.

"We shall. To the soon to be pure Pandora!" I said.

"To Hyperion!" Maya said.

"To the Eridians for making the Warrior!" I said, just throwing something random out there.

"To Handsome Jack for hiring us!" Maya said before we made eye contact. I stared at her sharp grey eyes for a moment before rising my glass slightly higher.

"To you," I said softly. Maya smiled before doing the same.

"To you as well," she said. Our glasses connected and we took a sip. This was our beginning. This was Pandora's new beginning. Order had been restored. Now there's nothing left but to live our lives. Hopefully they'll be full of love, loot, and happiness.

"May we last together forever," I said softly as I lowered the glass from my lips.

* * *

A/N: And that's it! Final chapter, and personally, I liked how I did it. It was kind of odd to end it where I did, but honestly, what more is there to cover? I probably didn't showcase Zer0 as much as I should've, but he wasn't a main role in this story, sorry to say. The Male Siren version of Hammerlock's Hunt should be up soon. It's defintiely on my list. I started a little on it already. Nothing to do but wait. See you all!


End file.
